Covid-19

       Covid-19 has become the largest threat in our global world over just the past few months. Despite the original unconcerned reaction many people had when the virus was first found, this situation has turned into a pandemic due to covid's high infection rate and ability to quickly cause difficult health problems in its hosts. It's understandable that officials would seem to not have worried about this virus when Chinese doctors first noticed it as it closely resembles pneumonia, however, after the SARs epidemic in the early 2000's, it would be expected that they would watch more closely for situations such as these. Because of lucky (for the virus) timing, Covid-19 hit a densely populated area of China, which is the most populated country in the world. The largest annual migration happens around every January in China when everyone travels back to their hometowns, sometimes taking weeks to get to their parents, to celebrate Chinese New Year. The coincidence of this event and the beginnings of the virus caused it to spread quickly throughout the country as people began travelling. Additionally, due to the globalization that our modern world experiences, and the large number of especially Chinese students living overseas, the virus could spread quickly throughout the world.
       One thing that has been expressed by many celebrities is the way that this unseen enemy affects anyone and everyone it can, regardless of who they are. Of course, this means it is more likely to affect world leaders and people who travel often or are well connected globally. The virus was interesting and slightly predictable in the way that it mainly has affected China, Europe, the Middle East, and now the United States. These are all regions with close ties and citizens who are at liberty to travel more often, Spring Break in the United States, and cruise ships are a great example of this. The virus doesn't seem to have badly affected areas such as the outback of Australia, much of Africa, and most of the southern regions of South America, instead focusing on more developed countries.
       I do think that we have responsibility in minimizing the overall spread of the virus, but I also feel as though had there been more adequate attempts to contain the virus (looking at you North Korea ;) this could have been more easily preventable. In the future, world leaders may want to focus more closely on possible threats to our livelihoods that do not involve war.

Comments

Jadyn Cleary said…
I agree that the US should have protected itself better against the virus when the outbreak first began. If the proper precautions had been taken early on, we could have avoided the situation we are in now. I think the lesson to be learned from this pandemic by the US is that we need to support doctors and medical experts through school and beyond, sufficient public healthcare is a necessity, and the economy should never be placed above public health and safety.
March 30, 2020 at 1:02 PM
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