A CHALLENGE TO MANKIND

COVID -19 A CHALLENGE FOR MANKIND

We are living in a world which most of us use to call as a global village with technological advancement we all are closely connected virtually but just a little germ a virus that we can’t even see with naked eyes has created self-implicated barriers between us. Siblings living in the same city, same area or even in same neighborhood are not visiting and meeting each other now for days.  No social life, no hassle bustle in the street all across the globe. City size shopping centres are all closed down, no clubs, bars, even church, mosque and holiest places of every religion are devoid of their devotees. YES, there  are places like hospital and graveyards are there where we see all sorts of activities 24/7 with patients and dead bodies of COVID-19 patients are coming in and going out.

There is no doubt that the world is facing a global health crisis unlike any in the 75-year history of the United Nations — one that is killing people, spreading human suffering, and upending people’s lives. But this is much more than a health crisis. It is a human, economic and social crisis. The corona virus disease (COVID-19), which has been characterized as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), is attacking societies at their core. Thus leaving us to ponder how little, small, minute and in other word helpless we are although we claimed to have mastered each and every aspect of human life and had learnt the truth about the whole universe.

Later part of December 2019 is the start of the outbreak of corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) which has created a global health crisis that has had a deep impact on the way we perceive our world and our everyday lives. Not only the rate of contagion and patterns of transmission threatens our sense of agency, but the safety measures put in place to contain the spread of the virus also require social distancing by refraining from doing what is inherently human, which is to find solace in the company of others. The pandemic coincided with the Chunyun, a major travel season associated with the Chinese New Year holiday. Many Lunar New Year events and tourist attractions were closed to prevent mass gatherings, including the Forbidden City in Beijing and traditional temple fairs. Hong Kong raised its infectious disease response level to the highest and declared an emergency, closing schools until March and cancelling its New Year celebrations. The demand for personal protection equipment has risen 100-fold, which led to an increase in prices of these items up to twenty times the normal price and also induced delays on the supply of medical items for four to six months.

Now the whole world is facing questions like, where will we be in six months, a year, 10 years from now? I lie awake at night wondering what the future holds for my loved ones, my vulnerable friends and relatives. I wonder what will happen to my job, even though I’m one of the lucky ones: I get good sick pay and can work remotely. I am writing this from a part of the world, where I still have self-employed friends who are staring down the barrel of months without pay, friends who have already lost jobs. Corona virus is hitting the economy bad. Will anyone be hiring when I need work?

With this pandemic going bizarre, there are a number of possible futures, all dependent on how governments and society respond to corona virus and its economic aftermath. I am a wishful thinker and hope that we will use this crisis to rebuild, produce something better and more humane. But we may slide into something worse. I think we can understand our situation – and what might lie in our future – by looking at other crises. I always focus on the fundamentals of the modern economy: global supply chains, wages, and productivity. In the face of Covid-19, this has never been more obvious. So it’s high time we should try to rebuild our society on stronger footings with central objectives be love, care, humanity, brotherhood and space for others.

It’s an established fact that in a normal crisis the prescription for solving this is simple – the government spends, and it spends until people start consuming and working again. It has surely proven that how false our believes about our Markets and socio-economic set ups. All these changes that we will shape in after Covid-19 may even hint at the possibility of longer term change that makes us happier and helps us tackle climate change. These changes will give me hope. They will give us the chance to save many lives. But the questions still remain the same as what will be these changes and how long will take us to get there? Why many countries of the world were so ill-prepared to counter a crisis like covid-19?

With the spread of this virus now all across the world it’s time to work on a proactive bases as how to help developing countries prepare, respond and recover and doing so in a way that is not only about health, but is about the fabric of societies, and the resilience of countries and communities. If COVID-19 exposes vulnerabilities, for that we must work to build resilience, beyond healthcare in businesses, government capacity, contingency planning, transport networks and much more. In our insurance and risk finance work for example, we should  look to both short-term measures to protect the most vulnerable and long-term integrated solutions, where pandemic risk is actively managed, reduced and transferred, alongside and at the same time as other risks.

As it is true that COVID-19 respects few boundaries, of age, class or financial status, ethnic group or political stripe therefore support work must be carried out across the globe not in just limited and specific areas. I am afraid that as corona virus disease COVID-19 spreads further, it will continue to expose the inequalities that exist in our health systems. It will expose the exclusion of certain groups from accessing care, either because of their legal status or because of other factors that make them a target of the state. It will expose the under-investment in free public healthcare for all, which means that access to quality care will for some be based on purchasing power and not medical need. It will expose the failure of governments - not just health services - to plan for and deliver services that meet the needs of everyone. It will expose the life-threatening vulnerabilities caused by displacement, violence, poverty and war.

What I see is this pandemic is exposing our collective vulnerability. The powerlessness felt by many of us today, the cracks in our feeling of safety, the doubts about the future. These are all the fears and concerns felt by so many in societies who have been excluded, neglected or even targeted by those in positions of power. I sincerely hope COVID-19 not only teaches us to wash our hands, but makes governments understand that healthcare must be for all. Lock-down is placing pressure on the global economy. We face a serious recession. This pressure has led some world leaders to call for an easing of lock-down measures that too will result in an unequal treatment for those who can’t fight the pandemic on their own.

In the end I would like to highlight the challenge which country like Pakistan where I was born and brought up is going to face and that will badly hamper its growth and development under the influence of COVID-19. Control of infectious diseases in a country like Pakistan with one of the highest population density in the world and insufficient healthcare facilities is nothing less than a nightmare. The country has no trained quarantine experts and no training program for the medics’ paramedics and laboratory staff in order to handle patients according to internationally recognized protocols. Visuals coming out of healthcare units clearly point towards the fact that there is complete chaos at all levels due to lack of proper training and facilities. The spread of the most dangerous contagion via untrained lab technicians, medics and paramedics therefore can be an impending calamity. Therefore what I suggest is that either its Pakistan or any other country of the world we should think as one human race and should not creed a divide between us on the bases of colour, creed, race, nationality, social status ancestral linage, political affiliation, economic strata, and above all gender biasness. It’s the time that Allah has shown each one of us no matter whatever religious belief he/she have that with all our development, growth and advancement if we cross our limits, someone is there to warn us, warn us before destroying us, therefore it’s high time that we start working on building a society which is totally opposite to one we were living in and should be a true replica s HE (the creator of world) wants.

BY: OVAIS ASAD KHAN