‘The pandemic demanded everyone to be sensitive and fight together for the greater good’ – 25 quotes from India’s COVID-19 struggle

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

In situations where you can't expose yourself to open ventilation and you are dealing with pathogens, decontamination and sterilisation solutions become important. - Janani Venkataraman, Biomoneta

The creation of integrated digital health infrastructure in the country had become all the more crucial after the COVID-19 outbreak. - Saurabh Arora, Lybrate

Due to the pandemic, there has been a huge backlog of elective surgeries. The lack of quality healthcare professionals and facilities is also a challenge in India. - Archit Garg, Glamyo Health

Consumer behaviour is exponentially trending towards leading a healthier lifestyle and making conscious choices. - Mitisha Mehta, Aquatein

The unemployment rate declined from 8.3 percent in August to 6.9 percent in September, the highest in 20 months or since the Covid-19 shock in March 2020. - Mahesh Vyas, CMIE

Standing united with distributors, retailers and trade partners will help [agarbathi makers] overcome the losses and in a quicker bounce back. - Arjun Ranga, Cycle Pure Agarbathi

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We have observed a drastic boom in the D2C space due to the ongoing pandemic, and there is an upsurge in demand for intimate skincare, menstrual hygiene, and body grooming specially made for women. - Sunitha Ramaswamy, LetsVenture

Amidst the pandemic, brands and startups accelerated the shift to Direct to Consumer (D2C) ecommerce to harness the opportunity of reaching consumers directly and faster and cater to them more efficiently. - Ajay Kudva, Enlyft

In a post-pandemic world, the D2C model can be an effective solution to catalyse recovery of businesses. - Sampad Swain, Instamojo

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about several unpredictable changes and made us quit our dependence on offline channels. - Saurabh Baishakhia, Usha International

Post-COVID-19 provides a huge opportunity for fresh to home delivery companies, which can match the hygiene and quality expectations of customers. - Sudarshan Boosupalli, Meamo

The pandemic led people to spend more time at home. Hence, homeowners have been re-evaluating their home space and have chosen to renovate their homes to accommodate new needs. - Ramakant Sharma, Livspace

The COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated the adoption of smart homes as people have started spending more time indoors and are gravitating towards technology that can not only improve their quality of living but also helps in simplifying the daily household chores. - Abrar Ahmed, Aura Smart

Dining out gives people a sense of normalcy back to pre-pandemic levels and that is something that a lot of people are capitalising on. - Ankit Mehrotra, Dineout

The accelerated need for digital solutions at cost-effective options, especially post the pandemic, has fuelled the need for low-code adoption. - Boopathy Rajendran, Vuram

The pandemic has entirely altered consumer behaviour and has accelerated the need to track insights faster for the hypercompetitive offline smartphone retail market. - Kunal Sarkar, PredictiVu

Post COVID-19, with hybrid and remote working models becoming the norm, many companies have realigned job functions. - Sudhakar Balakrishnan, FirstMeridian Business Services

Running back-to-back meetings to responding to emails to IM’s to different channels on different collaboration tools has gotten us entangled in a vicious cycle. - Monish Matthias, Sabre

COVID-19 impacted the repayment capacity of borrowers as many lost jobs or ran out of businesses. This impacted lending as lenders were and are worried about their money in the market. - Tanya Chadha, Mswipe

Covid-19 has altered the way people interact with financial services, which has led to an accelerated pace of transition to secure and inclusive digital finance for all. - Pramod Lamba, Valyu.ai

The pandemic has seen massive growth in the fintech sector, especially in the area of digital payments. With a new cashless and contactless digital payments platform, the sector can expect its growth to be further accelerated, especially in rural India, which is the hub for most direct benefit transfers. - Vineet Tyagi, Biz2X

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With the pandemic and overdose of OTT platforms, India has already seen a massive rise of approximately 30 percent in podcast consumption (as per KPMG Report) during the pandemic. - Amritaanshu Agrawal, ED Mirabaud Group

MSME exports are going to play a role of a catalyst in restoring the strength of the Indian economy. - Narayan Rane, Minister for MSMEs

Used car leasing and subscription is now fast catching pace in the country as employees are avoiding public transport for safety reasons and corporates are seeking an affordable car leasing model as an end-to-end employee mobility solution. - Tarun Lawadia, PumPumPum

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Given the fact that in the post-pandemic era, around 18 million Indians might need to switch occupations by 2030, the [upskilling] market holds a huge scope. - Neeraj Tyagi, We Founder Circle

It’s exciting to see how fast these young entrepreneurs move, turning today’s adversity into opportunity and taking advantage of changing consumer behaviours. - Esha Tiwary, Entrepreneur First

Amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the inevitable shift in the manner the first and second waves are managed — from national to state-level control — has highlighted the importance of locally-led action to manage at scale while remaining sensitive to context and rapidly changing ground situations. - Manu Gupta, SEEDS

The pandemic demanded everyone to be sensitive and fight together for the greater good. - Sahil Chopra, iCubesWire

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).

YourStory’s flagship startup-tech and leadership conference will return virtually for its 13th edition on October 25-30, 2021. Sign up for updates on TechSparks or to express your interest in partnerships and speaker opportunities here.

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