COVID-19

COVID-19

In Mid-December there was news of a terrible disease from Central China that was attacking the respiratory system and had no cure. At that time, of course, it didn't seem like much of a threat and no one was paying much attention to news from China. Even the Chinese themselves got involved and reprimanded the Doctor who was warning of this disease. He was warned by spreading fear and disrupting world peace. Soon this doctor would die while treating Covid-19 cases. At that time it seemed like more of propaganda and fear-mongering than factual. A certain leader in fact from a world superpower categorized it as "Fake news". Fast forward to January and a number of deaths later and the world's attention was now being attracted, not so much though. It still seemed a far way off and there was no visible threat insight but this was the first mistake the world made. Ignored and didn't put enough preventive measures in place. All except one, Germany. What made Covid-19 so dangerous was the fact that it was hard to be detected early and by the time the victims found out that they were infected they had already spread it far and wide. That's exactly what happened when new cases were reported outside China in neighboring South Korea, Singapore, and Iran.   At this point, the pathogen was showing the world just how serious it was but still little was being done in the western countries to prepare for it. In mid-January, the first cases started appearing in Europe and in The United States of America. At this point, China had already been knocked down to its knees and the economy was in shambles with most of the manufacturing companies closing down to prevent further spread of the pathogen. This seemed to attract a lot of attention from Western countries especially the USA because a lot of it's companies have factories in China. Apple Inc. was the first to report that it might not meet it's Quarter targets due to its largest company Foxconn being shut down. At this point, all the other large companies such as Tesla, Microsoft, and Intel that have companies in China stared in disbelief as one by one their factories were shut down.   Italy by this time was Europe's hotspot for the disease but the Government acted late by declaring a lockdown in the Northern part of Italy by which dozens of scared Italians had run scrambled and dispersed all through Italy unknowingly picking and spreading the pathogen in their wake. The other European countries were soon reporting cases and World economies were already crumbling at this point. Only Germany seemed prepared to take on the threat head-on because they had prepared entire units, ICUs and testing kits back in January but still got their fair share of infections. Italy and Spain meanwhile were reporting heavy mortality rates as a result of the pathogen. It was worse due to lack of enough resources such as testing kits and ventilators that help the affected breathe since the pathogen mostly attacks the respiratory system.   The World Financial markets were taking the most hits with major indices such as The Dow Jones Industrial Average Index(USA9, Dax 30(Germany), FTSE 100(UK) and NIKKEI 225(Japan) reporting major losses. With world Governments at this point declaring lockdowns and the World Health Organization declaring a state of emergency, things were officially bad. Health workers were being overworked and most had to play the role of God in deciding who lives and who dies and most people losing their jobs. Terror was in the air. Finally here was the largest crisis since the Second World War. Now Governments are injecting large amounts of capital to their economies and slashing interest rates to stay afloat. But these can barely make up for what they have lost in the course of just a few weeks.  It had taken decades to get to where most economies were and yet within a short period of time all the gains have been lost, in fact, the global economy is on the verge of a recession. Some countries have had to step in to help their neighboring countries in the case of Germany taking a lot of patients from Italy and Spain and treating them in German hospitals.   In all these commotion one region has actually been standing out, Africa. At first, when the rest of the world was being hit not a single African country had any case but then scared Africans abroad started running back home and tourists unaware that they were affected started spreading the disease and soon Africa might be the next Europe. However, African Nations have so far dealt with the Covid-19 better than most other nations. Having battled Aids, Ebola, and Malaria the continent didn't waste time when Covid-19 hit headlines. Some countries, in fact, have not reported any case so far and have tight measures in place. However, this could be the calm before the storm because once the disease starts spreading, should it spread, it will move like wildfire and with limited resources could be catastrophic.   Hopefully, soon a vaccine will be found for the Covid-19 and there's hope. Until then everyone should sit tight and exercise caution