The horrors of the novel coronavirus cannot be understated. As of this writing, there are 31.5 million cases of COVID-19 around the world, and 970,673 have died — closing in on the grim milestone of a million lives lost. One million lives lost.

This month, we’ve seen wildfires devastate California and the American Pacific Northwest, and hurricanes submerge much of the Gulf Coast, with more storms headed their way.

To those readers who have lost someone they know and love, we extend our deepest sympathies. For those who have managed to avoid infection, or the loss of life and property, keep on doing whatever it is you’re doing to stay safe.

These events have driven large segments of the global workforce into isolation, as offices have closed, perhaps never to reopen. In many cases, companies that hadn’t yet begun a move towards completely digital operations have had to scramble to create environments in which their people could do their jobs and the businesses can move forward.

What this has resulted in is the acceleration of ‘digital transformation,’ to use a term people seem to understand in spite of its vagueness. And this has been a boon to many providers of soft- ware, infrastructure and data platforms.

We saw it in the growth of food delivery applications, in online sales — notably of cleaning products that were no longer on physical store shelves — and in information about the virus. Companies like Instacart, DoorDash and GrubHub went from little-known applications to household names.