Originally published at my LinkedIn profile on April 5, 2020 where Corona virus started ravaging the world:
Have you ever imagined what it would be like to successfully invade all the countries of the world? Well, you don’t need to imagine that anymore. The world is successfully invaded. It’s invaded by the virus called Sars-Cov-2, popularly known as Coronavirus.
As we speak, Coronavirus is ravaging the world. A million people are affected. The death count reached sixty thousands. These are just official numbers, predicted to be much lower than the actual ones. One estimate says that 1 in 4 people in the US has contacted the Coronavirus, albeit most of them are asymptomatic. Like the US, the rest of the world is struggling to pinpoint the actual numbers of infected, the exact ways the virus spreads — via droplets, aerosols that we know for sure, but via mere breathing? Hence, the suggestion given is to maintain 6 ft distance from each other so nobody's breath cannot touch you.
The reality is sobering. The comparable pandemic of such global scale can be traced back to 100 years back — 1920 Spanish influenza which killed 65 million people.
Communities are under lockdown. India, with its 1.3 billion people, went to 21 days long lockdown beginning 24 March. Bangladesh, a country of 160 million, went into official lockdown on March 26. So are other countries with the most advanced healthcare systems. Singapore, nervous over its cases mounting over 1000, instituted a stricter lockdown for a month due to newly-found “unexplained” spread.
Meanwhile, the United States ranks atop the highest official counts of Coronavirus infected with its daily death count reaching 1000, a death toll double than that of two of America’s deadly diseases — lung cancer and the flu.
From testing to contact-tracing to treatment, each country is trying to cope — amping up testing kits, ventilators, and isolation wards. However, the virus is growing at an exponential rate. The cases worldwide doubled within the March-end week, reaching a million. That means as more cases grow, the doubling days will be lower. The momentum is with the virus, for now.
Every country is overwhelmed. Everybody is overwhelmed. Experts are scavenging for answers. A successful vaccine is predicted to be 12 to 18 months away.
There is a human side to the pandemic. And then are political, social, and economic implications. Victor Orban, the Hungarian ruler, turned into a full-blown dictator citing that he needs the power to tame the virus. Whereas,Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has extended his rule till 2036, capitalising the chaos of the pandemic. The United States Department of Justice seeks sweeping powers over the individual liberty of its citizens that in any other time would be unthinkable. The unemployment in the US rose up to 6.6 million in the end of March, a colossal figure that has no match in history, be it the Great Depression or 2008 financial crisis.
North Korea, as it seems, quintessentially has it under control, citing no cases. China, where it all began, resembles somewhat of the pre-Corona reality, opening the country slowly. However, many are having hard time trusting the Chinese numbers. Whereas China reported the official death count only at four thousands, one report cites that there is at least forty two thousands to forty six thousands urns only from Wuhan. Then the allegation of hiding the outbreak information — first among themselves where Wuhan hid initial outbreak information to Beijing — then Beijing failed to alert the rest of the world as “promptly” as it should have been. Before Wuhan shut itself down, three hundred thousands people left. During the full-blown epidemic, the flights from Wuhan went all over the world, over indexing their footprints in Japan, Bangkok, Singapore, Taiwan, and China. Then the celebration of Chinese New Year went on full-blown all around the world.
The questions remain regarding the WHO’s role at the onset of the pandemic. As late as January 14, WHO, citing the preliminary study by Chinese, informed the world of no evidence of human to human transmission. Absence of evidence served as the evidence of absence. People thought that the new Coronavirus is not contagious. Moreover, even on February 3, 2020, two months after the first case in Wuhan and half a month since knowing the virus transmits human-to-human, WHO was not recommending the travel suspension worldwide.
The truth is we are not out of the woods yet. Heck, we don’t know how deep in the woods we are. For us to know, we require testing, tracing, and treatment. Testing has some early signs of getting widespread. However, that’s skewed towards the advanced countries. Abbott labs in the US can provide test results within 5 to 13 minutes. However, it’s not clear when countries like Bangladesh will have access to such widespread testing. Bangladesh’s closest neighbour India has approved 12 different rapid testing methodologies. Their test count stands at forty thousands, whereas Bangladesh has only performed a mere 1200 tests. One week into the full-lockdown in Bangladesh, a coherent strategy is yet to be formed regarding testing, tracing, and treatment. Government of Bangladesh is not facilitating the private health care system of Bangladesh, which serves the two-thirds of the patients, participating in testing. Instead, the focus seemed to be on turning up make-shift hospitals with thousands of beds at a time the city requires more testing, ventilators, and ICU capacity. The coherence in strategy is missing.
Albert Einstein observed, "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”
The reality is that the world has forever changed because of the Coronavirus. The world needs to develop a new set of institutions, practices, systems to avert the ongoing crisis. Our sense of hygiene, social gathering, work, consumption are changing too fast. For us to get out of the mess, we need to endure, innovate, and work our way out of it. The only question that matters now is that if we are doing enough. It’s truly an all-hands-on-deck approach that needs to be activated.
