2020 will be in history books in a couple years from now. Were only four months in and a lot has happened, the main thing being Coronavirus or COVID-19 for short. This deadly virus started in Wuhan China and has since made its way to 185 countries and territories with over 2 million confirmed cases. This virus has required the world to come to a halt, schools around the world moving to online learning, the stock market crashing and many businesses forced to close their doors for an indefinite time. This has raised several questions of how we can combat this situation and from looking at past experiences like the Ebola epidemic or the world finical crisis we can learn from our mistakes and make sure we tackle this virus in the best was possible because for many, this is the first time ever experiencing something like this and will take some time to adjust to this new lifestyle.
First, we need to look at what is the Coronavirus. This deadly virus originated in Wuhan China from a wet market which was known for selling a variety of living and dead animals to the public. The wet markets are known to have poor hygiene which makes it easy for viruses to go from animal to human and researchers say that COVID-19 is supposedly started from bats. Just from starting at this wet market it has already spread around the world and is doing so because this disease is so new. We don’t have answers or a vaccine to control this virus because we have never been exposed to such a virus like this before. What we do know about this virus is that it is a raspatory infection which puts a lot of older citizens and people with compromised immune systems at higher risk. The symptoms of this virus include fever, dry cough, general feeling of being unwell and some have also reported a loss of taste and smell. The symptoms are linked to a lot of similarities to the flu which is also why it’s so hard to know exact numbers for this virus as it is flu season, and many can mistake it as the flu.
it’s easy to say that the impact of the coronavirus has been felt from across the world and it’s important to look at how we can better understand the impact of this virus. From readings in class we can better understand the impact thanks to past epidemics like the Ebola crisis that we learned about. One of things we learned about was the importance of NGOs (non-governmental organizations) these organizations are so important in times like these because they are not tied to a government and run on their own terms and can respond to action a lot faster than government officials for example during the Ebola epidemic “ Given the lack of political will by national and local governments to rapidly deploy assistance to help affected communities in west Africa, the activates of NGOs like MSF/DWB proved to be decisive in preventing what could easily turned into an unprecedented catastrophe of global proportions” (Steger, 2020) thanks to the importance of these NGOs we as a globalized world can respond to the coronavirus more efficiently because with past outbreaks like the Ebola crisis we can learn that we need to support organizations like doctors without borders as they help eliminate the spread and need to have more government support earlier on to make sure the situation wont worsen like Steger states “ there is no question that coordinated international steps must be taken to better prepare the world for a future outbreak” (Steger, 2020).
Another thing that has been impacted due to the coronavirus is the economy. Given the circumstances with businesses closing and mass layoffs its bound to have an impact. We have already seen gas prices drop drastically and governments helping out citizens with emergency fund benefits. We as a globalized world can take our past experiences to better understand the impact that this virus is bound to have and take the right steps moving forward as a globalized world to tackle this virus and respond effectively. From 2007-2009 the world entered a financial crisis and spawned a severe sovereign debt crisis and a banking crisis and this is a risk of happening again because we are seeing what happened in 2009 starting to happen now as Steger states about what happened during the world finical crisis was ” impact the probability of many businesses, forcing them to cut back production and lay off workers” (Steger, 2020) and due to coronavirus many businesses are forced to cut back and lay off millions of workers around the world. From what we learned about the global financial crisis we know that most first world countries will be able to recover from a situation if it were to happen again but looking at the statistics, developing world countries were hit hard “With a financial shortfall of 700 billion by the end of 2010” (Steger, 2020) . From this information we as a globalized world need to support these developing countries who are desperately in need of support during these hard times to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself and need the IMF, ECB and the World Bank to show more support to these countries during this time. These developing countries also don’t have the health care many first world countries get access to and don’t have ventilators and necessary supplies to help get them threw if coronavirus were to hit these countries and that’s where the government also needs to look at TNCs for help as these multi-billion dollar company’s should be tasked with helping as these companies normally hire workers who make clothing or assemble electronics for these TNCs and are often pushed a side like the now viral story of the rana plaza collapse which caught worldwide attention and made people think if these billion dollar companies are supporting their workers.
In conclusion the coronavirus is something new and challenging but from learning from past experiences and situations similar we can come together to combat this virus and its many challenges that may face us. From looking back at past epidemics and financial troubles we can try to eliminate the mistakes we have made and aim for a better approach to combating the coronavirus.
References
Steger, Manfred, B. (2020). The political dimension of globalization. Globalization: a very short introduction. (pp 76). S.l.: OXFORD UNIV PRESS.
Steger, Manfred, B. (2020). The political dimension of globalization. Globalization: a very short introduction. (pp 76). S.l.: OXFORD UNIV PRESS.
Steger, Manfred, B. (2020). The economic dimension of globalization. Globalization: a very short introduction. (pp 49) S.l.: OXFORD UNIV PRESS.
Steger, Manfred, B. (2020). The economic dimension of globalization. Globalization: a very short introduction.(pp 49) S.l.: OXFORD UNIV PRESS.