COVID-19 (The world situation and Pakistan)

 

COVID-19

Introduction:

The virus which became epidemic(وبا) in Wuhan city of china and soon it became pandemic(عالمی وباء) and it affects the people across the globe it has different implications which are as follow.

 

Economic Implications:

1- The world economy has not seen such severe(شدید) shock in the recent decades or even in the whole century not even during the Global Financial Crunch of 1967 or during great depression of 1930s, 2008 nor in World War-I and World War-II.

2- The World GDP never experience such severe decline like in the year 2020.

US economy growth decline from 2.8% to -4.7% which was more than seven digits

·         GDP growth rate of EU (European Union) was plunged into negative and decline by   more than 5 digits.

·         India’s GDP decline more than 10 digits fall.

·         China’s GDP 5% plus decline.

·         Pakistan’s GDP decline from 3.8% to -.0.4.

·         Overall GDP decline by 10 digits.

 

3- The year 2020 was the worst year for tourism.

·       World Tourism Form and World Bank has more than 1 Trillion dollar lost

Globally, at least 2.5 billion dollars alone to USA, Europe, Australia, Japan, Turkey, Egypt, UAE, China, India. Businesses and Industries were also affected like hotels etc.

 

4- The World Transport Sector never experienced such an abnormal recession as in the year 2020, World Airways faced a loss of 300 Billion Dollars after that Sea Transport were in loss majority of world trade through sea which was cut down by 50%. After that railways were at loss i.e different trains in London, UK etc, Local Transports also at loss.

 

5- Industrially more than 50% cut in industrial production like in Electrical, Textile, etc excluding Food and Medicine Industries.

 

6- The World Energy Sector never experienced such a sweep resin before.

 

7- The Shall Oil prices in US went to negative price which means take petrol with money.

  

8- Concluding, world never experienced such a phenomenal unemployment rations. More than 30 million people lost their jobs in USA, more 260 million peoples their job globally.

 

9- Now impact when world is going out of COVID-19 internally there is a price hike i.e in UK 5 times price hike same in the US and in Pakistan also as there is lot of price jump in different commodities.

 

 

Social Implications:

 

 

1- Social interaction patterns changes like hand shake, greetings phenomenon changes dramatically.

 

2- Religious institutes whether Church, Mosque etc were closed, faced nev ever in human history.

 

3- Social distance of at least 6 feet culture adopted.

 

4- Public places like bazars, parks, roads etc was shut down.

 

5- Work from home strategy was common.

 

6- Moreover, domestic violations increased as a result psychological impacts increased.

 

7- Along with the state imposed lock down self-imposed lock down started.

 

Technological Implications:

 

 

1- E-earning increased as markets were closed or restricted retailers shifted online like Amazon, Alibaba, Daraz, AliExpress etc.

 

2- By online education different software were introduced and started making money like zoom but most earning was done by Amazon.

 

3- E-learning started like universities, and colleges across the world shifted online. Moreover research based institutes conducted e-conference.

 

4- E-Conferences increased like Webinar i.e UNG one conference conducted online, Security Council seven conferences were online similarly European Union conference, SEO conferences were also online.

 

 

 

Environmental Implications:

 

1- Year 2020, was one of the years in which carbon emission was least due to stoppage of transport sector, industries and its benefit was global pollution index was least, the hole in Ozone Layer started healing. Moreover rains were increased, but unluckily it was a time based phenomenon again it is revived.

 

 

Political Implications:

 

1- Authoritarian behavior of state erupted as there are series of countries where curfew was imposed i.e India, Spain, Japan etc. Exclusive lockdowns was imposed in cities even in provinces. Smart lock down was imposed like Pakistan done, Financial penalties were imposed like imprisonments, financial penalties of 900 pounds on the violation of COVID protocol in UK.

 

2- Nationalism was always at rise but COVID exorbitant this process in that countries by closing their borders with neighbors like America, Northern America and South America, EU countries. Who were border less also closed their borders and transportation were shut down across the country to protect the nationals from COVID and there was vaccine nationalism was started as America was the first country who developed a variety of vaccine Pfizer, and Johnson etc. Policy was that American citizen will be vaccinated first similarly EY and UK developed vaccine and vaccinated their citizen first but China was only the country who provided their vaccines to third world countries.

 

3- The shift of economics concentrate from West to East expatiated as American economic jolted down by Corona, including Scandinavian countries, EU countries were adversely affected. But China and other develop countries were less affected. 

 

4- The severe flaws in World Health System was exposed by Corona like in EU, Italy, America, and India. Oxygen production globally at under pressure and demand of ventilators was increased and WHO did not respond the way it used to respond to global pandemics due to limited resources because America suspended its funds and due to less number of vaccines.

 

 

Pakistan Policies:

 

1- Like any other countries in the world, Pakistan was facing the repeated waves of Corona. Currently the country is facing the 5^th wave and probably the largest number of infections raised but till date the country deal with Corona much better then developed countries.

 

2- The policy guidance were of two types one was to protect citizen’s health and second to protect the economy of the country and for that we took some following steps:

·      Smart lockdown were imposed across the country when world were going for curfews or complete lockdown when WHO warned the Pakistan disaster implications but Federal Government tricked to its points after that mini lockdown was imposed.

·      To keep the wheel of economy rolling first we imposed smart lockdown. Secondary, agriculture was exempted from lockdown, construction sector was promoted as in the history of Pakistan were not given to construction earlier so that construction sector expand because lot of industries were linked with construction sector like cement industry, electrical industry etc.

·      The industrial sector was not closed rather they were allowed to keep working with COVID protocols.

·       Markets were not completely closed to save the economy especially daily wagers.

·       We dispersed 244 billion rupees to 2 crores families three times as a result not only health system of Pakistan were protected but also the wheel of economy kept rolling and after the first wave of Corona, one of the fast recovery made by any country was by Pakistan (Bloomberg IMF, Economist etc) as Pakistan GDP growth rate was fast.

·       Hopefully in ongoing and future waves or any other waves, we will save economy.

·       More than 100million people got first dose and 75million are fully vaccinated (Asad Umar Minister of planning and Development).

·       We made NCOC with the collaboration of military, civilians and virologist experts.