Areas Affected By Covid-19
Since the Corona Virus menace erupted and spread over the whole globe, it has had far-reaching implications across every area of life. Most corporate organizations have opted to lock down their physical facilities in a bid to minimize the infection rates of the highly contagious airborne disease. The Virus is passed from one person to another through getting in contact with the viral components from an infected person’s saliva. The businesses that require constant physical interaction of its workers have been adversely affected by the pandemic. However, most businesses and personal activities are mainly dependent on the stipulations of the government of particular jurisdiction. Television and radio have been the primary mode of communication by the government and health department. Constant updates on the state of the disease, i.e., number of new infections, recovered patients, and deaths, have been critical to aiding the critical activities by the government. The essence of the constant updates is to ensure that vulnerable individuals get identified, and safety measures applied to minimize risk.
The areas that have been most affected by the pandemic are businesses, partly due to the limited movement of goods and the inability of a significant percentage of people not attending their workplaces. Most governments have resorted to applying social security measures to their most vulnerable individuals. Philanthropy levels have significantly increased during this period, and the most afflicted part of the populace is receiving essential goods like foodstuff, masks, and sanitizers.
The nature of this pandemic calls for an accurate assessment of the environmental conditions and the extensity of the outbreak. Infections patterns are quite predictable, and the combative measures adopted by the government are overwhelmingly relative to the data supplied from essential health centers. The break out of Corona Virus was quite unprecedented, and hence the research was minimal during the first weeks of the infection. When the breakout happened in China, thousands of people passed away in the early days of the menace. The Government of China quickly imposed a lockdown on its citizens as one of its incentives in combating the menace. The Chinese gracefully went through the lockdown, mostly due to the robust social security measures the citizenry reaped from through the lockdown period. Surprisingly enough, by the time the numbers in European countries were skyrocketing, China had almost contained the situation, and the number of new infections and deaths had been contained. A month after the first Corona Virus infection patient was diagnosed, 10000 total infections had been recorded from various destinations globally. The countries that quickly restricted the entry of flights from China during the first wave of global infections such as the Tonga and Solomon Islands have been able to keep the disease at bay with no infection rate up to date (4th April 2020). That was the most effective approach to avoid dealing with the consequences that would tag along with the disease. The characteristics of the countries which have recorded the highest numbers of infections and deaths attributable to the Virus are those that left the entry points to their countries open and/ or unmonitored.
The situation in the current day have most nations reacting to the effects of the disease. The number of new infections is continually rising, with the most unfortunate and vulnerable people being those who have to work every day to earn a living. This group is also the most vulnerable to infection since they are likely to have limited access to proper sanitization and social distancing. The media is playing a central role in curbing the menace through regular sensitization campaigns and more importantly, entertaining the audiences though otherwise troubling times. Positive developments are also becoming regular since the disease has been around for a while, and various practitioners are seeing to it that proactive mechanisms are established as an effort to protect the race. The Center for Disease Control and The Santa Clara Public Health Department are examples of institutes that are working around the clock to regulate the impact of the Corona pandemic. The main roles of these health institutions are to handle the infected individuals and offer medical care until they are well, and also to monitor the infection patterns. Tracking of contacts is a terminology that has increased in popularity over the period that the Virus started spreading. When the authorities say that the infection patterns are predictable, most of the predictability can be attributed to contact tracing, which involves highlighting the movements of potentially infected persons due to their possible interaction with a positive person.
The role of the media during this period has had far-reaching implications that can only be identified by deliberate qualitative analysis. Analyzing it will expose the roles the media plays in disaster management, allocation of resources, and their effectiveness in providing information that is useful in the combatting handling of the circumstances surrounding the global Corona Pandemic. This study will analyze the activities of three media companies: The LA Times, NY Times, and Canada’s CBC. The three companies have been consistent with offering updates on the levels of infection, both locally and globally statistics. The similarities portrayed by the kind of information being aired to the masses are numerous. When the first case of Covid was confirmed in Santa Clara, the only information that was known about the characteristics of the Virus was the mode of transmission and preventive mechanisms. The New York Times did publish several articles with themes of ways to minimize exposure to the Virus, the common symptoms of the virus infection, and the articles also attempted to predict the nature that the social life of America and the globe as a whole would be affected. The Los Angeles Time around the time the first few infections were confirmed in the USA, and when the numbers in the other adversely affected regions such as Europe mainly limited their news pieces to writing sensitization articles. Canada’s CBC’s website incorporated a tracking feature to its website, which would allow website visitors to evaluate the risk around their areas. The CBC website has since been incorporated with more features, which include emergency contact and ambulance services for any person who exhibited symptoms like fever, dry coughs, and periodic sneezing. CBC has been more interactive compared to America’s LA Times and New York Times in the levels of proactiveness in combating the menace. CBC’s website adopts some of the features of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is immensely dedicated to addressing any issue on the Corona Virus, including free testing and treatment for people who have been identified through contact tracing plus those who exhibit obvious symptoms of being infected. The Santa Clara County Public Health Department has been at the forefront of addressing any COVID related complication, and what sets this health department from the other media is its dedication in the treatment and mass testing of individuals. The Santa Clara Health Department has been highlighted by Google on the web and offers practical help to victims other than just mobilizing like LA Times and NY Times.
Advisories by the Government of the USA have led to the regulations of all kinds of human activities, ranging from economic activities and hobbies as well. The local government of Santa Clara, for instance, where the first Corona Virus patient tested, has ordered the closure of all public amenities, and most businesses are only exempting the closure of businesses offering essential services. The mayor of the county of Santa Clara provides daily updates on how the situation in the city is being handled, with random developments cropping every day. The standing orders and recommendations for people in isolation in their homes. People are more likely to contract the disease from a crowded area, unlike if a person opted to stay at home. People are, however, free to move about and urged only to go out when they are seeking for essential services and goods. People are also urged to always put on surgical masks and gloves to reduce the chances of contracting the disease in case they get in contact with the Virus. The public library in Santa Clara suspended any admissions for people who wanted to research within its premises before March 12, and the borrowing of books was limited to operations between 9 am, and 4 am. However, after March 12, after the statewide House Order was effected, access to the public facility has been forfeited until further notice. Tech companies like Google and Apple have limited their services only to remote-based, and no workers are reporting to work. The two companies have approached their contribution to the mitigation of the effects of the Corona Virus differently from other companies. However, owing to the nature of operations, it has found no one by surprise. The two tech giants have leveraged their scope of abilities to assist in contact tracing. By tracking the history of patients who have already tested as positive, google and apple have been able to identify individuals who were in the vicinity of the victim. This approach has been successful in identifying infected persons, and although the program is not perfect, the data it samples is highly reliable and effective in contact tracing.
All the activities at my workplace, Physical Therapy Center, were halted during the first week when California reported the first Covid19 case. The nature of our organization involves random and constant physical contact, and other businesses that fall within the same line of work, such as gyms, saunas received orders to close their business during the duration of the pandemic. All employees are, however, on paid leave, and all colleagues regularly interact through socials, and we recently jogged as a group on 2nd April 2020. Our management was present, and we observed social distancing all through.
I have regularly observed the activities at Bayland Park and Central Park, at least visiting each once a week over March. Being a regular to these places, I could identify apparent differences in the patterns and numbers of visitors to the parks. One can easily count at least 100 visitors at these parks before the pandemic took over whatever time you chose to visit. During the first week of March, significant companies had already discontinued operations, and the number of visitors during weekdays remained constant, with little variations to the usual numbers. During the weekends between 1st and 12th March, there were approximately three times the usual number of revelers. The number of people visiting parks could have increased if the lockdown had not been imposed. Patterns of more and more individuals engaging in activities like jogging have been globally identified to increase when people were forced out of work, mostly needed to go out to obtain essential goods and services. The matter regarding humongous numbers of people running together during the morning hours in Cape Town, South Africa, has been raised as public health concern since runners struggle to keep social distance. This inadvertently led to the imposition of strong measures, mostly involving wearing gloves and surgical masks.
The implications of the CoronaVirus pandemic have had adverse implications on the normal operations of the economy, government, and home affairs as well. Wage workers have been significantly affected, and most of them are set to benefit from social security allocations. Since organizations and enterprises are barely operational, some employees have been sacked under the guise of the inability of their companies to sustain the payroll without revenue creation. Companies where employees can operate remotely, are mostly unaffected economically. One other lucky lot is those who were offered paid leave. The available data on the alarming rates of infection gives pointers to the periods after the CoronaVirus menace being unstable and which will take a long time to re-align the economy