We are in the second year of Covid-19 pandemic and already our weaknesses stand exposed. We used to boast about our economic growth, advancement in medical sciences, a robust health infrastructure and amelioration of poverty. Yet in a span of one year pandemic exposed all our vulnerabilities.
A plethora of injustices – economic and social- are now for us to deal. Fragilities and widening inequalities. Extreme poverty and enormous environmental issues only worsened the situation. A contagion came out of nowhere and caught us unprepared. It got a fertile hunting ground with ingredients like poor health infrastructure, economic inequalities, poor social protection and unscientific temper among leaders and masses.
The unprecedented spread of virus to every nook and corner of world, infecting millions and millions and killing hundreds of thousands has put the whole humanity in chaos. The damage is enormous and widespread. No amount of economic packages and solidarity can undo the devastation that has been done.
UNDP estimates that global per capita income is expected to fall 4 percent and a large chunk of population will sink into extreme poverty. School dropout rates can reverse to levels of 1980s as around 80 percent of school going children in low HDI countries could not get education during lockdown.
Even the very basic preventive measures like soaps, sanitizers, and face masks are like a luxury for millions of impoverished populace in different parts of the world.
As world continues to face devastation from Covid with an ever climbing death toll, what is more threatening is the economic, social and political devastation and the long term scars on humanity that this pandemic is going to leave.
From tackling the virus and its immediate effects, a bigger and complex challenge for policy makers will be to look beyond a decade and make choices in managing the challenges in the offing from governance to economics.
The war against deadly virus needs a holistic approach. Virus has only one surprising and deadly factor – blind mutation, and we humans are equipped with dozens of options to challenge and defeat the virus. Policy makers should take guidance from science rather than guiding doctors and scientists.
Unlike previous pandemics, response of science to the virus was quick. Virus was isolated within days and genome sequenced within months. Preventive measures were widely publicized and production on several effective vaccines started within one year of the pandemic. Today we have many effective vaccines against the virus in market. Biotechnology and information technology are at forefront since the start of this pandemic. It is information technology which played a pivotal role in smart lockdowns. Work from home, online education and marketing and tracking of Covid positive patients and contacts became possible only because of the genius of information technology.
It is rather a story of scientific success and policy failure. The biggest limitation in dealing with the virus is political and policy dilemma. The opportunity provided by science in containing virus was lost because of a mediocre global leadership mostly engaged in populism, nationalism and superstition.
A year down the pandemic we have several effective vaccines that no expert would have dared to hope. The biggest challenge is vaccinating such a huge population across the globe. As Israel, UK and US have mostly tamed the virus because of mass vaccination, what should worry us most is a large lag between vaccine production and requirement in most parts of the world. With each passing day infectivity and mortality is going to increase even the risk of new dangerous variants is imminent. A global cooperation and affiliation is requisite. Vaccine production needs to be scaled up and countries with excess supplies should help the countries which don’t have the technology to produce ample vaccines or any vaccine at all. Pandemic is global and it needs a global response.
Hopefully we shall defeat the virus. And with that success we need to triumph over the virus of isolationism and we must evolve global affiliations in addition to our national and ethnic affiliations. As most of the future challenges to humanity like climate change, cyber warfare, pandemics, poverty etc will be global in nature and thus requiring a global response.