It’s commonly accepted that pandemics, such as COVID-19, are universally terrible, but they do have one shining light: they often help jump-start certain ideas that are ready to go mainstream.

One such idea is the expansion of MBS-funding for telehealth.

Another is the use of robots in healthcare.

That’s not a reference to virtual doctors, like IBM’s artificial intelligence program Watson — although incidentally, IBM has offered a free version of Watson to governments in several countries to answer common COVID-19 questions and free up public health hotlines.