By Dr. Rajkumar Singh
The coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic is the defining global health crisis of our time and the greatest challenge we have faced since World War Two.
Since its emergence in Asia late last year, the virus has spread to every continent except Antarctica. Countries are racing to slow the spread of the virus by testing and treating patients, carrying out contact tracing, limiting travel, quarantining citizens, and cancelling large gatherings such as sporting events, concerts, and schools. By stressing every one of the countries it touches, it has the potential to create devastating social, economic and political crises that will leave deep scars. Many of our communities are now unrecognizable.
Dozens of the world’s greatest cities are deserted as people stay indoors, either by choice or by government order. Across the world, shops, theaters, restaurants and bars are closing. Every day, people are losing jobs and income, with no way of knowing when normality will return. Small island nations, heavily dependent on tourism, have empty hotels and deserted beaches.
Role of UNDP in combating Covid-19
Every country needs to act immediately to prepare, respond, and recover. Developing countries could lose at least US$220 billion in income, and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development has called for US$2.5 trillion to support them. Drawing on our experience with other outbreaks such as Ebola, HIV, SARS, TB and malaria, as well as our long history of working with the private and public sector, UNDP will help countries to urgently and effectively respond to COVID-19 as part of its mission to eradicate poverty, reduce inequalities and build resilience to crises and shocks.
In context of Covid-19, the UNDP declared, “We are already hard at work, together with our UN family and other partners, on three immediate priorities: supporting the health response including the procurement and supply of essential health products, under WHO’s leadership, strengthening crisis management and response, and addressing critical social and economic impacts.” We have been supporting countries since the very early stages of this crisis, donating more than two million surgical masks and providing life supporting medical equipment such as X-ray machines,infrared thermometers, infusion pumps, protective suits, gloves and hand sanitizer. We are supporting health systems in countries including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Djibouti, El Salvador, Eritrea, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Nigeria, Paraguay, Panama and Ukraine.
A curse for entire humanity
It will require all of society to limit the spread of COVID-19 and to cushion the potentially devastating impact it may have on vulnerable people and economies. We must rebuild trust and cooperation, within and among nations, and between people and their governments. While we do this, we must also consider ways to prevent a similar pandemic recurring.
Humankind is going through a new and unprecedented experience with the rapidly spreading Covid-19 pandemic. We still do not know who ‘patient zero’, the first person to be infected and transmit it to others, was. The severity of this virus, which has caught the world by surprise, lies not only in the delay of laboratories in finding an effective and efficient vaccine, but also in the fact that the measures taken to counter it differ considerably from what was previously adopted to confront various acute crisis, whether health political, social or economic.
There is no doubt that the Covid-19 pandemic will change the face of human society, but it forces us to ask some important questions. Will this change only affect the healthcare systems, or will it extend to consumption patterns, value systems, political regimes and legal systems, thus leading to the fall of the huge financial and economic empires? Will the major transformations the world will undergo be determined by how we recover from the effects of this situation?
Barring the measures adopted by China, where the virus originated, the methods used to manage the crisis around the world are somewhat similar. To some extent, China succeeded in curtailing the spread of the virus, thanks to the spirit of discipline in its people, and due to its health infrastructure, the plethora of research centres and laboratories, and the ability to control the sources of information from the onset.
Most other countries have wasted precious time after the first cases appeared, relying on legal and security control in dealing with the pandemic and information about it, rather than establishing a single entity to disseminate information backed by science. The current crisis is not of the pandemic alone. Rather, it is of the far-reaching consequences on human behaviour. Addressing these repercussions should not be limited to taking ad-hoc costly measures limited to the current situation but should prompt us to think about putting into place innovative measures and actions that go beyond the pandemic.
The coming world order
Humankind is going through a humanitarian revolution, the kind that has occurred only thrice before: first,after the discovery of fire; second, with the advent of agriculture; and third, following the industrial revolution. The most prominent sign of this ‘fourth revolution’ is the predominance of new technology and the supremacy of modern means of communication, which have spawned a conflict between two major concepts of using the internet.
The first can be described as social perception with a human connect, while the second is non-social perception, and can be termed as wild and unbridled. The humanitarian-minded perception is likely to win this conflict, as this human revolution is making its mark on our social existence and old behaviours. This will impact the current value system and will have political and economic implications.
The post-epidemic stage will see the emergence of a new human being, whose daily behaviour and thinking will differ from what it was before the Covid-19 outbreak. The political, legal and economic systems will have to adapt to this new human being. Despite the timely importance of the current safety measures being put into action around the world, there is a great need for these to be integrated into a comprehensive post-pandemic thinking.
In fact, we will find ourselves faced with a generation who thinks differently from the pre-pandemic generation. In light of the impact of Covid-19 on the individual and collective behaviours of society and State, and people’s continued thirst for information, it is necessary to keep in mind the post-pandemic world when it comes to decision-making. The Covid-19 storm will pass and mankind will survive, despite the loss of many lives. Humankind will soon live in a world that is very different from the one before the virus. However, the pandemic will succeed where the other movements of the 20th century have failed in their struggle to establish democracy and human rights, and preserve a safe environment for all.
Author: Dr. Rajkumar Singh, Professor and Head, University Department of Political Science, B.N.Mandal University, Madhepura, Madhepura-852113, Bihar, India.
(The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Geostrategic Insights)