Announcing the Plague year

The World Health Organisation declared the Coronavirus outbreak as a global pandemic after 118,000+ cases are reported from 114 countries around the world, today in 2020

2020 saw the outbreak of the novel Coronavirus; Source: Public Domain

Nobody quite knew what had happened. There had been a virus circulating, yes, but it was limited to East Asia, and people thought it would be like the SARS, coming and going in a fast burst. People did not even know the name of the disease yet - just a month ago, it had been declared to be the Covid-19 virus causing the SARS-CoV-2 disease, which led to a horrible death by weakening the immune system, especially in the lungs.

Of course, there had been actions taken - light screening, some testing and general measures for sanitization and cleanups. But nobody would have expected the response which came after the World Health Organisation conference on the 11th of March, 2020. On that fateful day, the numbers affected by the coronavirus ranged to 118,000 and more infected in 114 countries around the world, and of them, 4291 had already perished. Thousands more were fighting for their lives in hospital beds around the world.

The WHO decided, rightfully so, to declare the ongoing outbreak, a pandemic. A deadly virus now got its match in a deadly designation. This had some immediate, expected and some unexpected consequences.

As nations around the world started imposing travel restrictions, closing schools, offices, businesses, industries and large gatherings were banned, it led to a wholesale crash of the various stock markets. Then, the restrictions were tightened, as panicked citizens swarmed to markets to buy provisions for the upcoming lockdowns.

It is here in this conference, that many of the words now familiar to us would be spoken - Sanitization, social distancing, personal protective equipment (PPE), masks, body temperature measurements, and the list went on. A stunned populace saw the lifeblood of their economies shut down, even as the virus claimed more and more lives.

The meeting ended on a question, phrased like a warning - “Are we doing enough, are individual countries doing enough; these are the right questions. Are we doing enough? Each country needs to look at what they are doing, how well they are prepared, identify the gaps in their preparedness in terms of their actions and take action on that.”