“Coronavirus effect will last for decades”, WHO says

With nearly 18 million worldwide and still counting, the coronavirus outbreak does not seem to stop its riot after a long seven months of the disaster. The last similar pandemic in the living memory affecting the health of people at a large scale occurred in 1918. Currently, many scientists and researchers are working on developing a vaccine that can cure around 7.2 billion on this planet. The United States, Mexico, Brazil, and Britain have been particularly the ones who have been hit hard this past week with the Covid-19 disease. Meanwhile, the government is struggling to come up with an effective response. Economy and the people are hit by the restrictions introduced to prevent the virus to spread. Because of that many regions are fearful of what will be the second wave of this pandemic.

While the nations were dealing with the tensed environment, WHO (the World Health Organisation) on Friday, said that it is highly likely that the effect of the disease will be felt even decades later. 

The WHO emergency committee comprising 18 members and 12 advisors is meeting for the fourth time during this crisis. The committee is proposing new recommendations or amends the existing ones. The first public health emergency of international concerns (PHEIC) was declared at the beginning of the crisis when only 100 cases were found and no deaths outside China. However, there is little doubt that the WHO will maintain will maintain the pandemic status. WHO has been sharply criticized for the length of time it took to declare this problem as an international emergency. Majorly the US accused the organization of being to close to China and decided to withdraw its name from the organization in July.

The pandemic has so far killed about 680,000 people after breaking out from the first time in China last December. It can be clearly seen that the amount of time taken to declare this situation into an international emergency made the situation worse. In fact in India, the lockdown takes place in mid-March, almost after four months. As a result, the rise in cases and fear continues to increase and people are still trying to figure out the current scenario.

Meanwhile, more than 150 pharmaceutical companies are working on vaccines listed under the WHO. Although there is no prior knowledge about such kinds of medications while many questions were unanswered, the population remains vulnerable. Although the vaccine development is happening at the record speed, we should learn to live with this virus now and fight it with the tools and collaborative efforts, with all we have.

According to the serology studies, most of the world’s people remain susceptible to this virus, even in areas that have already experienced severe outbreaks. 

The countries who believed that they have passed the situation. There is no time to relax! The worst are now grappling with new outbreaks. It has been observed that the less infected countries in the early weeks now experiencing the rise in the cases and death. On the other hand, the countries that faced large outbreaks in the early week, now have experience than the other countries, manage to take the outbreak under control. 

We have to be ready to bear the consequences of this Covid-19 crisis that could even last for decades. The Director-General of WHO, Tedros Adhanom said that “this pandemic is a once-in-a-century health crisis the effects of which will be felt for decades to come.”

The effects of Covid-19 on the future definitely depends on how the government and society respond to coronavirus and its economic aftermath. The economies of collapse are fairly straightforward. Businesses exist to make a profit. If they can’t produce, they can’t sell things. Therefore, they are unable to make profits, which in return reduces the employability. To change the situation and boost the economy, people need to go out and spend money. But the whole point of lockdown means staying at home. Thus, the major outbreak brings the economy under pressure which leads world leaders to call for easing of lockdown measures. 

It is obvious that the past six months bring a huge recession to the economy, which will take decades to overcome. Therefore, what we need is a different economic mindset to deal with problems!