“Is It A Pandemic Yet” COVID-19
Any disease that outbreaks globally is usually considered to be a pandemic. Since the dawn of time, there has been an uncountable number of pandemics. At first, any outbreak disease usually starts as an epidemic, meaning that it is spreading rapidly over a significant size of the region. For instance, the outbreak of Zika Virus that manifested from Brazil in 2014 and its spread to Latin American and the Caribbean, the same way Ebola outbreak in West Africa between 2014 and 2016, were all declared pandemic. Those are just a few of epidemics. Currently, there is an outbreak of COVID-19. It began as an epidemic in Wuhan, China, and later made its way worldwide in the shortest time ever in the history of the epidemic. This exceptional trait made it declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on 12th March 2020 (World Health Organization, 2020). Not all of the outbreaks that start as an epidemic ends up as a pandemic. For instance, HIV was regarded as an epidemic in West African for more than ten years before becoming a pandemic in the late twentieth century. COVID-19 earned the pandemic title from its fast rate of spreading and affecting a substantial number of people and deaths all over the world. Thus, it is right to consider it as pandemic because it has affected more than the health sector, but its effect is felt on all industries to an extend all people’s lives are affected all over the world. Therefore, this paper is seeking to give reasons as to why COVID-19 should be considered a pandemic.
The official total of the infection worldwide adds up to more than two million, with the United States leading the number of diseases by thirty percent globally. It is believed that the official name of people who are infected exceeds the official name. The official number of deaths is more than one hundred and sixty-eight thousand worldwide, and the number of recoveries exceeding six hundred and forty-two thousand. However, there has been criticism that some nations aren’t giving out the exact amount of deaths registered. If this is the case, then the situation is worse than it seems, and people are just given false hope. These numbers shook the world to an extent the mitigation strategies implanted are, so server to an area they have made people’s lives worse. For instance, locking down countries to restrict people’s frequency of interacting and spreading the disease has crippled significant sectors that drive numerous nations’ economies. Some of the nations are already registered with negative economic indicators. The rate of unemployment is rising; for example, the National Bureau of Labor reported that the United States is registering the unemployment toll of five million people (Guerrieri et al. 2020). A large number of people who are employed being layoffs from the tourism and hotel industry. With no people moving from one nation to another or hosting social gatherings, this industry is affected just as much as the transport industry is concerned. The disease also has led to the emergence of new market stress. This effect can be seen in the stock market exchange where the Russian Rouble, South African Rand, Brazilian Real, and Mexican Peso values have depreciated significantly against the US dollar. This indicates that economies of the different nations all over the goal are straining to keep things reasonable. The government of significant countries is implementing furlough schemes as a means of salvaging their economies.
The global education system is also affected; as much as nations are trying to venture into online tutoring and teaching, the impact is still felt by students, teachers, and parents as a whole. Since avoiding social grouping is one way of managing the spread of the disease, all of the academic institutions had to be shut down for a while. For that reason, the academic department of many proposes online learning. This new learning strategy is discriminative; their students come from financially humble homes; they are not able to access necessary resources like a computer and even networks to access online tutoring. Besides, teachers are the only people equipped well with skills that can facilitate active learning to students.
Moreover, the home settings are not structured for studies, and there is an uncountable number of disrupters that are interfering with learning performance. According to the prediction delivered by the department of education, there is a high probability of student’s performance dropping from the university to grade level. Just like any other sector, the outbreak of COVID-19 is also affecting the industry of academic negatively.
The outbreak of COVID-19 harmed the healthcare system of the world. According to the report presented by the World Health Organization, most of the third world countries had now healthcare systems efficient enough to deal with the disease. Nations that had equipment that could lessen the disease’s impact, their health providers, weren’t prepared by such a pandemic that has a high rate of spreading. Take, for instance, Italy, a nation that has one of the best healthcare systems in the world, registered more than four hundred COVID-19 deaths at the registration of one case (Wang et al. 2020). The united states are leading in the number of infections and fatalities despite having the best healthcare system globally. The number of healthcare facilities that were enough to handle healthcare issues is now not enough. Healthcare facilities are now flooded by COVID-19 victims leaving no room for other illnesses and health problems to be dealt with. Countries like India, China, Japan, United States, etc. have reported cases of cancer patients scheduled for Chemotherapy. Still, they weren’t attending the guidelines since healthcare providers are overworked and over-occupied by the COVID-19 epidemic.
Some of the fundamental human rights are violated or obstructed. The laws of international human rights pledge for everybody the right to the highest attainable health standards and dictate the government to take measures that prevent the public exposure to life-threatening conditions and provide the best medical care to those who need it (Ueda et al. 2020). The laws also acknowledge that in the scenario of continuing health threat and public emergencies threatening the life of the country, it calls for necessary restrictions on some individual rights. The magnitude and brutality of the COVID-19 pandemic surpass the level of public well-being threat that could validate constraints for several reasons. Rights that are likely to have refrained impose isolation or quarantine intending to limit locomotive freedom. Other vital human rights like the right to a warship, to attend social gatherings, or even traveling are restricted. Thus, as a pandemic, COVID-19 has succeeded in altering human rights too.
In conclusion, the effect that COVID-19 has propelled exceeds the requirements that make an outbreak a pandemic. Diseases like influenza, HIV, Ebola, etc. came about affected people, and they were considered epidemics, but none has brought nations down to their knee as COVID-19. It has affected negatively not only one or two sectors but also multiple industries that run the country’s economy. Besides, it has interrupted the fundamental principle that makes us human interaction. As a result of the COVID-19 has forced people to distance socially. Therefore, nothing more needs to be said or accomplished by the outbreak to make it more pandemic than it has already accomplished.
References
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