COVID-19

Nowadays, people in different parts of the world have been showing an incomprehensible surge of desire to stock up toilette paper, disinfectants, and non-perishable food. Their panic of COVID19 has been going on and on. Videos showing people fighting over hand sanitizers and toilette paper have gone viral. The chaos seems to go hand in hand with the increasing number of deaths, which are continuously reported on social media and television.

The first cases of COVID19 started in Wuhan, December 2019. However, at that time, developed countries ignored Chinese epidemiologists’ warnings. Hence, the result has been devastating. If developed countries had taken precautionary measures last December, the current chaos and disastrous results wouldn’t have been happening; many lives would have been saved, including global economy. But, alas for the vanity of man’s judgment!

I can recall my daughter, who is nine years old, asking about COVID19 and the lockdown in China when we were on the way to celebrate Lunar New Year in February this year. There were many people in the party who unreasonably believed and said to my daughter that such novel virus would not affect or reach our small island, Prince Edward Island. After the party, my husband went to buy two boxes of surgical masks, yet I recommended buying five or six. My husband didn’t want to stock-up so that other people could have their share. One month later, most of the surgical masks and hand sanitizers disappeared from the Canadian market.

The pandemic has proved Thomas Friedman’s analysis in his bestselling book, “The World is Flat,” right. The American author predicted that globalization will turn the globe into a level-playing field in terms of commerce. In fact, this uniformity hasn’t been restricted to trade only; the virus has soon become a hefty blow to the entire humanity as well as economy worldwide. Each region has fallen into this cycle; the epidemic didn’t spare any country. Therefore, the world has to understand that mutual support and solidarity should come first, with health care taking the lead. World leaders should understand that military race and economic competition should not be among a country’s priorities, as compassion is the only thing that makes us human.

Last but not least, the impact of Coronavirus on human health and the economy has shown that the government systems are brittle. Moreover, post - COVID19 world is definitely going to be different. Rich countries will come to terms that global support and collaboration is a fact that cannot be evaded. For now, unfortunately, despite the rigorous precautionary measures approved by the governments, people’s lives and health are still unclear. We never know when we are going to see the light at the end of this long and dark tunnel.