As a child the one thing I would be always excited about the most was for the summer vacation. The two month long vacation to the school after the annual exam were the best and the planning for this vacation use to start way before. But this Coronavirus, or COVID-19 pandemic induced prolonged summer vacation is hard to fathom and least enjoyable.
Itineraries and plans for the summer vacations were drawn up well in advance. Where to go for picnics, which are good tourist spots, what skills to develop and most important what games to play with our siblings and cousins. The most amazing thing would be there would be no early bed times, no need to go to bed early and wake up early to get ready for school, can spend whole night watching TV or playing games. Whole day would be spent playing. All this fun ended with school.
But now we can enjoy such summer vacation again and can live that childhood memories, spend time with our family, explore our hidden talents etc. All this is possible due to nationwide lockdown announced by government. This lockdown was declared as there was increase in coronavirus or Covid-19 cases and in order to bring situation under control. The first case of the virus was detected in India on January 30 earlier this year in Kerala and since then the cases of coronavirus are increasing in our country.
This coronavirus first came into light as an epidemic in Wuhan city of China. The cases of pneumonia without known cause came forward. China reported this to World Health Organization (WHO) only on December 31, 2019 and the virus was named initially as SARCOV-2. This disease is now being called as Covid-19.
This virus has spread to every continent, except to Antarctica and has severally affected western countries like USA and Italy. The rapid spread of this disease and number of deaths it caused led WHO to declare it as pandemic on March 11 earlier this year. A pandemic is an epidemic that spreads to multiple countries. The number of people infected by Covid-19 has reached globally 2.8 million out of which more than 80 lakh people have recovered and nearly 2 lakh people had died till April 25.
To stop this pandemic global efforts are being made to find out vaccine, antidote and line of treatment etc., but scientist are not successful as yet. This is due to two reasons the mortality rate of this disease is only 1 to 2%, still the figures are high as not much is known of this claimed deadly virus. How this virus behaves, how it affects human body is still a mystery which medical researchers, scientist are trying hard to find out.
The only thing known is that this virus is highly contagious and spreads through human contact that is if a person who is infected by coronavirus comes in contact with healthy person than he may infect healthy person. Also it takes time for symptoms of Covid-19 to be visible in infected person and till the symptoms are not visible the acts as an Asymptomatic carrier of this virus. Just by coming in contact with carrier who appears to be healthy can infect others. And since human beings are social animals and come daily in contact with each other hence the number of infected people is so high.
There is apparently no vaccine or cure for Covid-19 as of now so avoiding human contact is our only way to stop or reduce the spread of this virus. This avoidance of human contact is called social distancing that is maintaining appropriate distance from others and stop spread of coronavirus. In order to make sure this social distancing is being followed by people government authorities in various countries across the globe have announced lockdown for varying periods which has resulted in about 2.6 billion people that is one-third of world’s population currently is living under some kind of lockdown or quarantine.
This has brought our way of life to an almost complete halt. The novel coronavirus pandemic will have profound and lasting impact on every aspect of our life and will be visible in every corner of world.
The most severe impact will be psychological leading to various mental health problems. Currently the main focus is building places to treat people infected with this highly contagious disease but no one is concerned about its psychological implications. These will come into light within the first three to six months after the end of this unprecedented lockdown.
This will further become worst as this lockdown all across the globe is leading to near paralysis of our economic activities. The focus should be on recovery of this economy as quickly as possible and so it will not lead to more stress and cause turmoil in respect of our physical and mental health.
But let us focus on the psychological impacts on people during this lockdown. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the resultant lockdown and the economic activities coming to a standstill due to which income of people too has stagnated as not all people have jobs that could be carried out from their homes like daily wages labour etc. Due to lockdown these people do not have any source of earning which is leading to stress and depression. The ones who are going to their work are also under constant stress that they may get infected which leads to developing anxiety related disorders etc.
Medical professionals are worst affected in terms of psychological implications as they have to work for close to 8 to10 hour shifts a day, the PPE kits are one time use and are very uncomfortable. Along with this they cannot meet their families as they are at high risk of get infected. It is reported that all this has resulted in some medical staff showing symptoms of depression. Along with them students of all age groups are also vulnerable.
This is because schools, colleges, universities are closed due to the lockdown. Exams of school going children are cancelled and exams of universities have been postponed along with several other entrance exams that are conducted. There is no specific announcement as to when they would be held. Also students who also did part-time jobs have lost their part-time jobs as local businesses are closed. Final year students are anxious about the job market they are going to enter. All these issues have led to increased stress, pressure, mental tension and have increased likelihood that these students will develop mental health problems.
Apart from these the most concerning impact are the increasing cases of domestic violence since lockdown. This is because insecurity of jobs, stress, and mental tension has led to increase frustration and anger which has led to increased abuse against one’s own life partner. The other reasons include that people are not often accustom to spend so much time together due to their busy work-life are now forced to do so which leads to constant conflicts, fights, increased frustration which takes form of abuse.
This lockdown was implemented to stop spread of coronavirus has had its quite impact on economies all across the globe, the world economies are now in tatters. This lockdown world that has been put in, has led to collapse of activities to such an extent unlike anything experienced by us in our lifetimes. Closing and shutting down all industries and businesses has had its impact on people’s lives.
Many countries are facing multiple crisis at same time and in order to solve these problems policymakers are trying their best in providing unprecedented support to households, firms but this isn’t solution as what will be scenario after end of lockdown and pandemic is uncertain. It has been predicted that this is going to lead to an economic recession which would be worst since the Great Depression of the 1930’s and far worse than any of the Global financial crises.
This is going to affect everybody, but the ones who will suffer most or rather who are suffering are poor people, the daily wages labourers whose one square meal is now not guaranteed due to lockdown. Lack of income or no income to fulfill basic necessities of life like food has resulted into increase stress and other psychological problems as stated above.
Along with them the next to suffer will be the middle class employees as their savings have started to deplete and if the jobs are lost unemployment will increase which would be the black berry on top. All these and lot more are the future impacts of lockdown on economy.
However if we look on brighter side nature is healing due to global reduction in economic activities. There is considerable reduction in levels of air, water, soil, noise pollution. The wildlife has reclaimed the earth and is enjoying mother nature.
Social media is full with viral photos, videos of wild animals like penguins going to aquariums and watching fishes in tanks or ones where peacocks are spotted on roads, highways with whole group dancing and enjoying themselves or river dolphin spotted again in river Ganga and river Yamuna. One thing is clear that all other species of wildlife are enjoying this change in mother-nature and having the best days of their lives.
But it is feared that as lockdown will be gradually lifted and people will start working hard to recover the damaged economies and all this will be at the cost of our mother nature. So this is our chance. It is like blessings in disguise to prove that humans also care for mother- nature and are willing to change and improve our behaviour towards mother-nature.
This pandemic and subsequent lockdown has given us chance and there is still possibility of making fundamental change in the way we lead our lives. So instead of exploiting mother-nature to fulfill our needs try to embrace it along with fulfilling our obligations towards it so that we can live in harmony with mother-nature and share this beautiful planet which belongs to all animals and us in equal measure.-
(Utkarsha Muley is student o political science and can be contacted at Utkarsha.muley@gmail.com)
