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Covid-19 at 5: How it reshaped the world

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“Every day on earth is a good day, don’t forget,” rapper Pitbull’s words may just be the lyrics to a common song, but they reflect on how surreal and dystopian they were. You can feel the weight of these words. That’s been the case for the past five years. War, economic decline, climate crisis and millions of lives lost. If you start thinking about it seriously, everything will only throw you into the pit of despair. Perhaps the most surreal of these events was the COVID-19 pandemic.

Looking back, 2019 seems like yesterday, but it also feels like a long time ago when the world was a different place. Maybe that was actually the case. There is a stark contrast between the pre-COVID-19 world and the post-COVID-19 world, and the pandemic has really brought out the worst in humanity.

Also read: Twitter will no longer enforce its COVID-19 misinformation policy

Dystopia personification

SARS-C0V-2, the scientific term for the Covid-19 virus, was first identified in Wuhan, China, sometime in late 2019. The virus then spread rapidly among the population, turning into a full-blown epidemic in just a few days. A few weeks. The WHO officially declared the COVID-19 pandemic a public health emergency in January 2020, phased it into a pandemic in March 2020, and then the circus began.

From babies being baptized with water guns in socially distanced settings to people injecting themselves with a literal horse drug (pronounced ivermectin), those few years seem almost surreal. It is said that life imitates art, but it is more apt to say that art imitates life, and the pandemic has served as shining proof. Millions of people dead, racism rampant, the world’s health infrastructure hanging by a thread, a global recession worse than the 2008 economic crisis, and a never-ending sense of doom. The pandemic has pushed humanity into a dystopia only seen in fiction. .

human cost

I remember anxiously tuning into the news channels every day to see how many new infections were being reported every day around the world and how tens of thousands of people were dying every day. Medical experts urged people to stay indoors, governments severely restricted people’s movement, businesses were forced to close, and people were largely left to fend for themselves.

The official death toll from the pandemic is more than 7 million, according to WHO data. That’s seven million lives lost, seven million people with stories and dreams, and seven million people whose absence leaves a gaping hole in countless lives. The world will never be the same.

Who hasn’t felt the same way since 2020 and the pandemic?
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Online discourse was filled with racist abuse blaming Asians for the global pandemic. Everyone was struggling in every way. Being trapped within four walls with no way out made everyone feel helpless and had a serious impact on collective mental health. To this day, many people feel a little uneasy when they hear the word “quarantine,” but the impact of the coronavirus has been far-reaching.

Harrowing images from around the world of doctors struggling to save patients in hospitals operating far beyond capacity, and mass graves being built just to keep up with the death toll, are images of global health concerns. It serves as a stark reminder of how fragile the state is. Infrastructure has always been that way.

Tanking the economy

The economic impact of the pandemic continues to be widespread to this day. The coronavirus disease (Covid-19) has plunged the world into recession, severely impacting supply chains and causing a spike in inflation. Governments around the world have announced lockdowns, halting virtually all economic activity and sending billions of people around the world into a frenzy.

Panic buying has led people to stock up on essential items such as toilet paper, sanitizer and groceries. Depleted stocks have caused prices to soar around the world, forcing governments to intervene and announce price caps on essential items such as masks and tissues. And with the lack of economic activity, companies reported significant declines in profits, which continued to do so. This led to mass layoffs and a rise in unemployment.

The hospitality industry was one of the most affected sectors around the world, along with the tourism industry. Although governments around the world have announced relief packages for their citizens, people are still struggling to make ends meet. As with everything else, the Global South has coped with the worst of the pandemic.

Things literally went south.

The Global South has borne the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic. Countries like India remained some of the worst affected regions. Lockdowns announced with little or no warning have left public transport largely unavailable, forcing migrant workers to cover thousands of kilometers on foot, often losing their lives in the process. Countries such as Lebanon and Iraq also faced difficult conditions due to weak health infrastructure and fragile economies.

India’s coronavirus death toll is “significantly higher” than officially reported, at nearly 3 million people, more than six times the government’s admitted figure and the highest of any country. are. The findings could prompt scrutiny of other countries with unusually low death rates.
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Hospitals struggled to cope with the influx of patients, resulting in severe shortages of life-saving materials such as masks, disinfectants, beds, oxygen cylinders, and other essentials. Countries such as Brazil and India have officially reported more than 500,000 deaths, painting a grim picture of how desperate the situation is.

full of conspiracies

Amidst the chaos, social media was flooded with various conspiracy theories. Ranging from the fact that the virus was actually a biological weapon released into the world by China to that it was the beginning of a “New World Order.” Some believed it was a hoax orchestrated by the “deep state.”

Conservative world leaders like Donald Trump have also downplayed the serious effects of the pandemic, while many right-wing influencers and Trump supporters have promoted pseudoscientific treatments while also using Twitter (now X ) and other social media platforms fanned the flames of conspiracy online. Famously, podcast host Joe Rogan defended his decision to take ivermectin (an anti-parasitic drug used to deworm horses and cattle), while also saying that young, healthy people should not take COVID-19. He also suggested that vaccines are not really needed.

To this end, coronavirus vaccines such as Moderna, Pfizer and Oxford’s AstraZeneca were considered part of a secret government project to track the population via microchips in the vaccines. Yes, I know. That’s much more stupid than it sounds. These are some of the more widespread ones, and we’ve only scratched the surface. It is no exaggeration to say that the pandemic has caused irreparable damage to social media and media in general, merging with the mainstream and spreading misinformation.

aftermath

Living in a post-COVID-19 world is difficult, to say the least. Returning to normalcy remains a problem for many people, and the impact on the mental health of the population as a whole is far-reaching. Dealing with feelings of loss, social isolation, and anxiety can make things difficult. Remember, Covid-19 has caused a “long coronavirus” in which patients suffer from coronavirus-related symptoms for weeks or even years. In addition to things largely returning to “normal,” new coronavirus cases are occurring around the world, and people are still succumbing to the virus and its many mutations.

In addition to the far-reaching human impact, the economic impact remains evident. Many researchers attribute the rise in inflation, unemployment and other problems to the pandemic. As I mentioned earlier, the media environment has also undergone a paradigm shift, with many voices and discourses that were once confined to the fringes now part of the mainstream. Disinformation, false news, and fake narratives are steadily increasing.

The impact of the pandemic has been immeasurable, and it is no exaggeration to say that it has changed the world. Whether this is for the better or for the worse remains to be seen. But from what we’ve seen so far, it’s not a pretty sight.

Also read: 2023 Nobel Prize honors Catalin Carrico and Drew Wiseman for groundbreaking coronavirus vaccine




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