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Launched in 2014, StoryBites is a weekly feature from YourStory, featuring notable quotable quotes in our articles of the past week. This special series of compilations focuses on India’s COVID-19 struggle. Share these quotes and excerpts with your networks, and check back to the original articles for more insights.

It is time to be on guard again, COVID-19 is back in the news. What have we learnt from the past two years of the pandemic, and how can we prepare for the upcoming developments?

Each Monday, YourStory has been capturing quotes on pandemic impacts and responses from our weekly coverage. This compilation began right since India went into national lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic on March 24, 2020.

The quotes in this compilation for 2022 cover pandemic impact, health responses, digital transformation, organisational leadership, skilling, and recovery. See our earlier annual quotes highlights from 2020 and 2021; quotes compilation on Crisis Management; and Pivot and Persist section for resilience stories.

YourStory thanks the healthcare community and frontline workers for all their sacrifices in ensuring public safety and wellness, as well as all those reinventing their organisations for a successful future and a better world. We wish all entrepreneurs and our readers a Happy (and safe) Holiday Season and Happy New Year ahead!

Taking stock

COVID-19 made us all realise what our mortality is—that this is one life, we have to live and for that, we need to look after ourselves. – Radhika Ghai, Kindlife

The pandemic has reminded us how interdependent we are: what happens to one person can soon affect many others, even on the far side of our planet. – Swathi PN, Team Yuva Artists Collective

The pandemic made every human being humble against nature and made us relook at life priorities. – Nagaraja Prakasam

Financial planning is not a luxury anymore but a necessity, that’s one of the biggest learning from the Covid pandemic. – Vinay Bansal, Inflection Point Ventures

Covid is here to stay for a while, but we cannot let it rule our lives. – Namita Thapar, Emcure Pharmaceuticals

The uncertainties are likely to continue with new waves of COVID-19 and businesses will experience sudden shifts of opening and closing economies. – Suhail Sameer, BharatPe

The pandemic brought along the stress of job uncertainty, existential angst related to the meaning of life and work, working from home, and the stress of ill-health. – Nelson Vinod Moses, Suicide Prevention India Foundation

COVID-19 has been a huge wake-up call that has come at a heavy cost. It has also made all of us relook at what we were doing. – Ram Shroff, Charak Pharma

Healthcare

The pandemic came as a wake-up call for many as far as health is concerned. And in a little over two years since, the general understanding and perceptions of well-being have evolved significantly. – Karan Singh, ACG

The pandemic had made us all take a step back and put self-care and wellness at the centre of our being. – Radhika Ghai, kindlife

The pandemic helped people realise the importance of inclusive health. Now more than ever, people are focusing on holistic wellness with wholesome nutrition playing an integral part in physical and mental wellbeing. – Aarti Gill, OZiva

Society has developed a healthy appreciation and insight into authenticity and consciousness. – Ajay Jain, Tata Motors

Healthcare benefits are now seen by companies as an investment rather than a cost to the organisation, which have helped several employees move back to offices from their hometowns. – Yogesh Agarwal, Onsurity

Post-COVID-19 consumer’s preference for healthy snacks has considerably increased and there is momentous white space in the category. – Lovkesh Kapoor, Ananta Capital

It definitely looks rosy on the outside now, but it has taken quite a toll on my mental health, especially during the pandemic. A lot of businesses struggled through Covid-19. – Ritu Oberoi, ForSarees

COVID-19 has adversely impacted the already distressed early education sector. – Pranay Adhvaryu, Gray Matters Capital

Nearly 75 million people were pushed into poverty during the pandemic, and so Covid-19 has thus presented the corporate world with an opportunity to redefine the way they look at social causes and widen the ambit of CSR. – Jayant Rastogi, Magic Bus India Foundation

Responses and recovery

I think the first responders during the pandemic were ordinary citizens and the civil society – neighbours helping neighbours. Kindness to strangers was at its zenith all over the world. – Rohini Nilekani, ‘Samaaj, Sarkaar, Bazaar’

Being stuck in the house led to an inner exploration. That further lead to venturing into different styles and mediums of art. – Jyoti C Singh Deo

The pandemic was a period of developing new skills. – Bharathi Senthilvelan, Reminiscenses

The pandemic caused a lot of resets, particularly with job losses and loss of lives. Yet creativity was alive like never before through various forms and expressions. – Somak Mitra, Art Exposure Gallery

Do not give up, invest this time in building value for yourself and the consumer. Prepare for things to open up. – Aditi Madan, BluePine Foods

Businesses and workplaces

COVID-19 has accelerated the adoption of flexible workspaces across the globe. – Meghna Agarwal, IndiQube

In the post-Covid world, access to expertise has democratised itself beyond the organisation and geographic boundaries. – Anjan Lahiri, Navikenz

The pandemic has shown that remote work is viable, and I believe that will help in attracting more women to enter the tech industry where in many roles remote work is doable. – Sarita Digumarti, UNext

The pandemic has acted as a catalyst in rebuilding employer-employee relationships. Employees today are looking for more flexibility in terms of the working hours and the location of work, along with other things. – Senthil Kumar Muthamizhan, CultureMonkey

The pandemic has fundamentally changed the way we work and the way we hire. – Sekhar Garisa, foundit.in

From women entrepreneurs to couples starting up from their home kitchen, the post-pandemic acceleration in the business ecosystem is remarkable. – Bhavik Vasa, GetVantage

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a surge of the gig economy, which comprises freelancing or part-time work rather than full-time, permanent contracts. – Anshuman Das, Careernet

It is not only the demand for talent, the road to recovery and growth has led to a shift in the employment model as well. – Sunil C, TeamLease

Digital transformation and agility

Today, we have a war in Ukraine, we faced two years of a pandemic, and inflation is skyrocketing. As an entrepreneur, you need to be flexible enough to change the plans. – Prem Watsa, Digit Insurance

The pandemic was the watershed moment for the Indian startup ecosystem. The rate of digitisation accelerated at a massive pace and leapfrogged by at least a few years. – Ujwal Kalra, ‘Startup Compass’

We have seen a massive shift in mindset and adoption [of digital ways of working]. – Komal Prajapati, Betterplace

Digitalisation of services, though growing before the pandemic, saw a drastic increase in application across industries during the nationwide lockdowns. – Divya Batra, Haldiram Snacks

Technology has come to recast the entire healthcare ecosystem. The pandemic has particularly catalysed this all-round and enduring shift. – Nitendra Sesodia, Thieme

The pandemic has pushed us towards a cashless economy, and while pocketmoney and digital payment by kids are in their nascent stage in India right now, there is a huge potential. – Rajiv Dadlani, Rajiv Dadlani Group

Both before and after the pandemic, HR Tech has been a key enabler in assisting firms in adjusting to the ‘new normal’. – Girish Rowjee, greytHR

The behavioural shift during the pandemic is teachers’ adoption of technology. – Pradeep Pillai, OrangeSlates

Ecommerce received a significant nudge to go digital since the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, disrupting the way consumers buy products and services. – Zaki Hasan, Affivo

During the COVID-19 pandemic, ecommerce was a boon for many and enabled people to shop from the comfort and safety of their homes. – Prerna Goel, WhizCo

There has been a humongous shift from offline channels to online channels as well as a major shift in the sources of entertainment for consumers. – Akshay Modi, Modi Naturals

The COVID-19 crisis also opened up deeptech opportunities in India by removing regulatory barriers in record time. – Bala Srinivasa and TN Hari, ‘Winning Middle India’

The last two years have been like sitting inside of a time machine. The kind of change and the accelerated adoption to digital that we might have seen over a 5-10 year horizon is what is actually seen in the last two years. – Shashank Mehta, RazorpayX

The road ahead

There is so much revenge travel happening and people want to live in quaint homestays, and Northeastern states are very much on the map of travellers. – Jaydeep Bose, SayRooms

The pent-up demand owing to the pandemic has been sharply driving the festive season consumption, and credit demand, by extension. – Naveen Malpani, Grant Thornton Bharat

There is a huge pent-up demand post-pandemic. In terms of customer buoyancy, it is visible in commercial vehicle or personal vehicle sales. – Rajeev Yadav, Fincare Small Finance Bank

COVID was a bit of a rehearsal for the kind of world we are entering, which is going to be more dynamic and complex than anything we have seen before. This world requires agility. – Puneet Chandok, AWS

You’ll have lots of situations when the chips are down, such as the COVID pandemic. It is your passion that will get you through these tough times. – Sushanto Mitra, Lead Angels

The paranoia around COVID-19 is eventually dying down and people are envisioning a healthy time in the near future. This has also led to businesses getting back into shape, especially the real estate sector. – Sunny Garg, Crib

The past couple of pandemic-induced years has had their run. The next fiscal promises to be an uninterrupted galloping time for the Indian economy. – Rohit Kapoor, INSEA

YourStory has also published the pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World of Inspiration for Startups’ as a creative and motivational guide for innovators (downloadable as apps here: Apple, Android).