COVID-19: Learnings, crisis and challenges
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| Covid-19: Learning, crisis, challenge |
The coronavirus outbreak has become one of the biggest threat to the running human civilization. Unlike many other challenge we face like earthquake, hurricanes, typhoons, there's a limited number of countries in a region come out as being affected. But it is COVID-19 affecting more than 200 countries including it's inner zone by it's rapid pestilence confirming upto 70 million people causes in the world and it's 4.6% people of the confirmed causes have been turned death.
During the hard challenges time to individual or nationally, there are some of crucial fact we have learned from the pandemic:-
1. Family matters
2. Self care matter
3. Be prepared for any financial crisis
4. Remote working & Virtual learning
5. Telemedicine & befriend technology
6. Environment
Family matters:
Psychologist Richard Slatcher from university of Georgia says, :-
The ones who've done exceptionally well are couples in long-term relationships who felt renewed intimacy and reconnection to each other,”
So, we can realize from the pandemic that family matters is very important to our mental health.
Self care matter :
Richelle Concepcion, clinical psychologist and president of the Asian American Psychological Association, said
"Not only does self-care have positive outcomes for you, but it also sets an example to younger generations as something to establish and maintain for your entire life."
So, we can realize from it that self care is needed everytime though we are unaware to it for our busy life.
Be prepared for any financial crisis:
"The need to augment our retirement savings system to help people put away emergency savings is crucial." said J. Mark Iwry, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former senior adviser to the U.S. secretary of the Treasury.
Pandemic teaches us that all the general activities of the world may be interrupted at any time. Then, we may fall badly in need of money. So, it is suggested that we should be prepared for money to any crisis in future where money plays an important rule to face any crisis.
Remote working & Virtual learning :
As we are not sure what will happen in future, all the lovely present situation of today may fall down at any time. However, work and learning is very crucial to our career, we need to continue it as well as possible. Then, remote working and virtual learning with the help of friendly technologies may reduce such a crisis.
So, Carol Fishman Cohen, cofounder of iRelaunch says:- "One of the major impacts of the new working-from-home focus is that more jobs are becoming non-location-specific."
Telemedicine and befriend technology:
We've been forced to learn new technologies that, in many cases, have been the only safe way to continue to live our lives and stay connected to our loved ones during the pandemic. Online class through Google meet, zoom have been more popular than ever.
During the lock-down period, it was difficult to set for going out. As it is necessary to take medicine and advice from Doctor, telemedicine services have become more popular during the pandemic.
So Joseph Huang, CEO of StartX, says-"If nothing else, COVID has shown us how resilient and adaptable humans are as a society when forced to change,” says Joseph Huang, CEO of StartX,
Environment:
The global disruption caused by the COVID-19 has brought about several effects on the environment and climate. Due to movement restriction and a significant slowdown of social and economic activities, air quality has improved in many cities with a reduction in water pollution in different parts of the world. However, reduction of GHGs emission, water pollution, noise pollution have been seen notoriously.
Besides, increased use of PPE (e.g., face mask, hand gloves etc.), their haphazard disposal, and generation of a huge amount of hospital waste has negative impacts on the environment.
Impact on Bangladesh :-
The COVID-19 pandemic is having an adverse impact on Bangladesh's economy by affecting millions of people's life and hampering their income sources. The outbreak of COVID-19 has created more pressure on the labor market. The pandemic reduces employment opportunities as most of the companies have stopped their recruitment process to cut their operational costs, which increases the rate of graduate unemployment in Bangladesh. Hence, this study aims to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on graduate employability in Bangladesh that adversely affects the income of families and eventually the nation's economy. A literature review has been conducted from secondary sources to evaluate the impact, which shows that the rate of graduate unemployment increased from 47% to 58% in 2020 with an expected annual loss estimated at $53 million. Findings also reveal that the prime reasons for graduate employability are low demand and huge supply of graduates in the labor market, lack of professional skills of graduates, ineffective education system, etc. The study suggests that the government of Bangladesh should develop some policies to overcome this problem such as ensuring employment subsidies, implementing skills development programs, improving labor market flexibility, initiating credit programs for generating employment, and developing entrepreneurial ecosystems in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh, like other countries, faces the daunting challenge of fully recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic which has constrained economic activities and reversed some of the gains achieved in the last decade. The COVID-19 pandemic decelerated economic growth in 2020. The pace of poverty reduction slowed down, exports declined, inequality increased across several dimensions and the poverty rate in 2020 increased to 18.1 percent from 14.4 percent. Nevertheless, strong remittance inflows and a rebound in export market has helped the economy to start recovering gradually.
Impact on global Economy :
COVID-19 pandemic has spread with alarming speed, infecting millions and bringing economic activity to a near-standstill as countries imposed tight restrictions on movement to halt the spread of the virus. As the health and human toll grows, the economic damage is already evident and represents the largest economic shock the world has experienced in decades.
The June 2020 Global Economic Prospects describes both the immediate and near-term outlook for the impact of the pandemic and the long-term damage it has dealt to prospects for growth. The baseline forecast envisions a 5.2 percent contraction in global GDP in 2020, using market exchange rate weights—the deepest global recession in decades, despite the extraordinary efforts of governments to counter the downturn with fiscal and monetary policy support. Over the longer horizon, the deep recessions triggered by the pandemic are expected to leave lasting scars through lower investment, an erosion of human capital through lost work and schooling, and fragmentation of global trade and supply linkages.
Every region is subject to substantial growth downgrades. East Asia and the Pacific will grow by a scant 0.5%. South Asia will contract by 2.7%, Sub-Saharan Africa by 2.8%, Middle East and North Africa by 4.2%, Europe and Central Asia by 4.7%, and Latin America by 7.2%. These downturns are expected to reverse years of progress toward development goals and tip tens of millions of people back into extreme poverty.
Some of sectors that face crisis worldwidly during pandemic are:-
1. Hotel and Tourism sector
2. Aviation sector
3. Construction
4. Transport
5. Media and culture
6. Public service sector
Post covid priorties:-
The economic damage of Covid-19 represents the largest economic shock the world has experienced in decades. The crisis highlights the need for urgent action to cushion the pandemic’s health and economic consequences, protect vulnerable populations, and set the stage for a lasting recovery. For emerging market and developing countries, many of which face daunting vulnerabilities, it is critical to strengthen public health systems, address the challenges posed by informality, and implement reforms that will support strong and sustainable growth once the health crisis abates.
Prior to the pandemic, leaders identified these themes are their top five priorities:
Establishing a consistent customer experience across the full customer journey.
Aligning performance management and rewards to the business strategy.
Developing or enhancing the digital marketing strategy.
Aligning resource requirements with future business objectives (particularly, though not exclusively around digital competencies).
Improving data analytics capabilities.
Around a year and a half have passed since the onset of the Covid crisis. The Bangladesh economy and the global economy have certainly not been able to go back to the pre-Covid state. Though there have been some signs of recovery for the Bangladesh economy, the recovery process has remained weak, fragile and uncertain. The effective recovery process also requires a better understanding of the Covid context and setting the priorities right.
Priorities for Bangladesh
1) Establish a common data-sharing platform.
2) Introduce global and local data sharing policies.
3) Develop common data collection formats and conventions for recording data.
4) Introduce common identifiers such as Unique Property Reference Numbers (UPRNs).
5) Shift from silo to whole-of-government approach to generate data as important policy inputs.
6) Develop data analytics platforms for policymakers to facilitate timely interventions by using frontier technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Open Data and Big Data.
7) Develop capacity for intelligent civil registration and generation of vital statistics to develop policy dashboards in crisis.
8) Develop partnerships among technology companies, health care industries to directly support the health care industry, provide information to policy-makers to safeguard communities.
9) Promote South-South knowledge sharing and learning working across borders by sharing best practices to mitigate the spread, coordinate fiscal measures and boost trade.
Unlike in the pandemic time, virus tought us the necessity of unity as it does not know conspiracy, caste, nations and boundaries. It does not know xenophobia who are Asian, European or American. Once we are bunkered by its pernicious attack to our economy, health and even our existence. All the countries should come forward and raise the awareness with a view to mitigating the worsen conditions as the world may face again such a terrifying crisis.
Reference:-
https://www.koreascience.or.kr/article/JAKO202106438543845.page
https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/bangladesh/overview
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2020/06/08/the-global-economic-outlook-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-a-changed-world
https://www.povertyactionlab.org/event/emerging-challenges-post-covid-era-addressing-opportunity-inequality-and-growth
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7498239/
https://www.thedailystar.net/views/news/covid-19-recovery-contexts-and-priorities-bangladesh-2123251
