Vint Cerf, 'Father of the internet,' talks about recovering from COVID-19 and accessibility

Symptoms arrived on March 17th and this
was after having spent 10 days in London

and we were fairly confident that we
contracted this thing

while we were in London.

There were many events we attended that
had a couple hundred people.

They were in fairly close proximity to each
other whether it was a cocktail party or

an official dinner or something like that
or even just a lecture.

So I showed symptoms on the 17th,
my wife never actually showed symptoms,

but then about a week later
after a great deal of effort

we were able to get tested.

That is a story all by itself. We both
tested positive and so for the weeks after

until now we stayed in isolation.

By good fortune our younger son flew in
from Los Angeles for nearly 3 weeks

he's just flying back today to take care
of shopping and cooking.

So we had more than many other
people had in the way of help

and assistance to get through the recovery
process.

Wasn't he concerned about contracting it
as well?

Absolutely. So he exercised enormous care

He was up in the upstairs bedrooms and
we never went up there and

he disinfected himself, his hands, the
kitchen counter and all the other stuff

repeatedly. He would wash off anything
that came in from the store

we designated certain areas as germ free
areas and were careful not to put anything

on there that hadn't already been
essentially cleaned.

So he was very very concencious about
exercising all the normal precautions

that it is recommended in order to
stay isolated.

And so far as we can tell, over that three
week period, he did not show any signs

any symptoms anyways of this disease.

And when he gets back to Los Angelos,
today, he said he will self-isolate for

another 14 days.

So was he able to get tested before
he left?

No, we were not able to get tests for him.

But frankly, given the gestation period,
we are pretty confident that if he was

going to show any symptoms at all they would
have appeared during the period he was here

Many many people were kind enough to send
notes, I had not intended to say anything

and I was encouraged to be public about
this.

For a couple of reasons. One of them was that
maybe people would listen just given my

modest notoriety. So I tried to use social
media very sparingly to reinforce good

practices with regards to social isolation.

Which by the way, I think is a peculiar term.
Physical isolation is what we're after, not

social isolation.

All of what is happening in the world is
becoming more and more interconnected

just as we're doing right now because of
the internet.

Well, it's a very interesting questions
How would we communicate.

We have other mass media available.
We have television, we have cable TV

we have the telephone, we have radio.
So people probably would be,

by the way, there is a lot of telephone
usage right now, its gone up even faster

than some of the social media and things
like G-calls. So that's important to know.

Of course, having mobiles readily available
has assisted in the use of the telephone

system. So there would have been other
ways to keep informed, what would not

have worked however is the ability to
work from home for at least a significant

fraction of the work force. Internet has
certainly enabled that. To say nothing of

schools going online, as imperfect as that
might be.

So I agree with you that some of our response
to the COVID-19 virus, pandemic, has been

enabled by internet and if had not had
this capability I think we would have been

less able to respond to the situation
admitting that many of the internet based

responses are still not adequate but they
are surely a step in the right direction.

Which leads many of us to speculate that
post Covid-19 that our normal lives would

have shifted in some ways. For example
companies may be more willing to work

from home when that's convenient.
And that might actually be a very beneficial

thing for at least some portion of the
workforce, giving them flexibility that

they might not otherwise have. It might
also induce ways of using online capability

for education that would, I would say,
enhance or expand the business models

of school and universities.

So I think the post pandemic period will
be interesting and absolutely worthy

of our scrutiny. But that gets to one other
thing which is most relevant to why you

and I are talking, and that is to be more
conscious of the importance of accessibility

in all dimensions for these online systems.
We have still not done well in achieving

what I consider to be a very important
objective which is making online capacity

usable for everyone, including those who
have to overcome various kinds of disabilities.

And so that challenge lies before us, and
is just as much a challenge now as it has

been in the past.

I know you're working with Google,
you're working at Google I guess I

should say.

I had gone from the research department
for some 12 years or so, then to policy

and now most recently I'm part of the
cloud team. In all cases, however, I've

had a finger in the policy space,
specifically policy related to internet

and how its used, how it's abused
what to do about that. So that's one part.

I am a sponsor of our accessibility effort
at Google, and a sponsor of some of the

internal employee groups, interest groups,

for example, the disabilities alliance group.
Which is a group of employees who either

are disabled or have children who are
disabled, or parents who are disabled

or who have disabling conditions. And part
of the purpose behind that activity is to

draw attention to the accommodations that
are needed, whether that has to do with

accessibility of online systems or making
sure that for the blind employees that

there are paths that are clear and that
we don't leave things around for people

to trip on. There is a wide range of
response that the company wants to

introduce, but it can only do that if it
is made more clear what issues arise and

how they can be dealt with. On the
accessibility front, with regards to online

things, I am a huge fan of improving the
way in which we and other deal with making

our online applications useable.
Particularly for people who have to

overcome various disability, whether they
be physical disability or cognitive disabilities

It turns out that's really hard. Figuring
out how to do a good design which is

intuitive and accounts for the needs
of people with disabilities is quite a

challenge. I think it is an art. I don't
think there are textbook solutions to

these things. Although there are a number
of textbooks that speak to design which is

usable and intuitive. So I'm a big
proponent there.