The COVID-19 Pandemic and Its Effects on the World

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Introduction

The covid-19 pandemic is a global health crisis today and the greatest challenge the world has recently faced since the second world war. Ever since it was first identified in Asia, the crisis has affected every continent except Antarctica. It was first reported in Wuhan province, a good business hub in China that caused more than eighteen thousand and had infected over fifty thousand people. The pandemic proves to be more than a health crisis as time goes by. It can devise catastrophic social, political, and economic effects with long-lasting effects.

People are losing their jobs while others whose nature of their work cannot allow them to work from home cannot physically avail themselves at their workplaces due to the restrictions in place to help curb the spread of the deadly virus. Covid-19 everyone in different ways, almost all of the infected persons will develop placid to moderate sickness and then recover without needing hospitalization. The elderly and those with any serious medical condition are most likely to develop severe complications if infected with the virus. The typical virus symptoms are fever, tiredness, and dry cough, while the less common signs and symptoms include sore throat, headache, loss of taste or smell, and a rush on the skin.

While the spread and impact of the pandemic will vary in many countries, it will likely see an increase in inequalities and poverty on a global scale, creating an urgency in the sustainable development goals for most countries. The covid-19 virus is spread through body fluids such as saliva droplets or nose discharge when an infected person coughs or sneezes. To slow the spread of the virus, it is advisable to wash their hands with soap and clean running water, sanitize, avoid touching their faces, cover their mouth while sneezing, practice social distancing, and wear face masks. Upon assessing the impacts of the coronavirus on countries and economic structures, and the vulnerable groups in society, it is essential always to be informed and ready to adapt measures taken by the governments to come back from the crisis without leaving anyone behind.

Discussion

Saskatchewan and the Atlantic province of Canada during the early onsets of the pandemic, two regions moved swiftly to implement tight border restrictions, with a compulsory quarantine for fourteen days to anyone coming into the provinces accompanied by strict measures within their borders. The imposed closed border has seen the regions record a low number of COVID-19 cases as the rest of the country struggles with new strands of the mutating virus and is even in fear of an imminent third wave of the coronavirus.

The Atlantic people were conservative and quick to act with consistent messages concerning public health. The region’s low population density and its geographical location have contributed significantly to controlling the pandemic. On the policy front, strong coordination between the provinces’ medical officers of health has aided in steering the pandemic at bay in those provinces (Fauci et al., 2020). The two provinces are part of the Atlantic bubble, a particular travel area restriction created on July 3rd, 2020, in the wake of the pandemic’s second wave. The bubble continued to allow the region’s local economy and its tourism operation to function while the cases and death resulting from the pandemic were cubed.

The health system of Saskatchewan focuses on any measures that can be undertaken to mitigate and delay the covid-19 pandemic effects. These measures include; encouraging residents to sanitize, self-isolate, and maintain social distancing, allocating enough resources to set up more testing centers, and using aggressive contact tracing for those with the covid-19 virus. By February 2020, during the onset of the pandemics’ first wave in the region, the Saskatchewan province had prepared a Covid-19 preparedness plan to help them control the spread of the pandemic in the area.

Saskatchewan COVID-19 Preparedness Plan

The local Saskatchewan Health Authority used the H1N1 Flu pandemic plan to construct a set-up that would help guide and prepare for the COVID-19 pandemic. With this framework, the province’s health authority planned to address surveillance of the pandemic, public health measures, public health measures, clinical guidelines, communications about the pandemic, psychological consideration, lab, and testing services, and continuity of health services (Safari, 2021). These plans were updated following the currently available information about the Covid-19 pandemic. The project had assessments on every aspect, including the likelihood of the pandemic spreading to Canada as a whole, the risks it paused, how Canada planned to respond, and how Saskatchewan prepared to react as a province.

Current State in Canada

According to the assessment of the plan, the likelihood of Canada experiencing an outbreak of the pandemic was considered high; the risk to the general population was deemed low but had the potential to shift rapidly. After noting that, the plan was confident that even though the pandemic would spread at a first-rate, their health system was well prepared to respond and deal with the pandemic and its impact.

Current State Risk

When the plan was prepared, it was noted that the vulnerable population with chronic health issues had a higher risk of being infected with the virus. The danger in Canada would vary based on the travel history and type of activities people would be involved in while out of the country; those traveling on a cruise ship and those who would participate in gatherings had a high risk of being exposed to the virus. It highlighted that to reduce the risks; individuals were required to observe health etiquette such as washing their hands, staying indoors if ill, and practicing social distancing measures, for instance, avoiding all forms of body conduct.

Federal Response

A special committee of health medical officers in Canada was put in place to respond quickly to the pandemic. The committee has focused on coordinating federal, territorial, and provincial preparedness across all health sectors in Canada. The Canadian national microbiology laboratory performs diagnosis and testing for the root cause of the virus causing Covid-19 with the hope of creating a cure. The laboratory works in collaboration with the territorial and provincial health laboratories.

Saskatchewan’s Response

The plan was to detect the COVID case early enough and possibly delay the spread of the pandemic. The medical health officers. The Saskatchewan health authority authorized the activation of the province emergency operations center. They also established several options one could choose from for testing the virus in individuals, such as being tested at home and being tested at a health facility. Modeling the pandemics’ potential scenarios and their impact was made to keep the local planning informed.

A health system indicating how ready they were for the pandemic was created to show how various services were to adapt to meet the demands of a COVID-19 patient while also continuing to serve the healthy ones. The plan had an update in April 2020 to reflect Saskatchewan’s province specified data that was not available when the program was drafted. The region’s offensive strategy aimed to ensure that health care was easily accessible and provided integrated care by giving the patient all the necessary care.

COVID-19 Response in Atlantic Canada

As the rest of Canada continued to deal with the devastating third wave of the COVID-19 virus, the easter parts of Canada had become a haven of normalcy. Many of the cases reported in those areas were reduced, and many harsh restrictions were removed (Merkley et al., 2020). The Atlantic provinces of Canada have less than Five hundred reported active cases, while regions like Ontario have more than 30,000 active cases with new ones identified daily in record numbers.

The Atlantic province region of Canada was recognized as a unique success story by the media. The region had strict regulations on travel outside the region; this helped minimize the number of new cases recorded while keeping at bay those already registered. The region’s leaders have attributed the success to residents’ ability to follow directives and make sacrifices for the common good (Béland et al., 2020). In the Atlantic regions of Canada, the provincial governments have regularly adopted policies to help avoid severe illnesses and deaths; they simply prioritized human lives over businesses. Other factors include;

Remote and Small Population

The Atlantic provinces have a low population density than regions like Ontario; this helped the regions avoid a severe outbreak like the other regions. However, policy differences between provincial and territorial governments responsible for their respective healthcare networks have played a role in keeping the virus at bay. While the lockdowns that accompanied the first wave of COVID-19 last spring were primarily the same across the country, the post-lockdown era has seen various policy interventions, each with its own set of advantages and disadvantages.

In the Atlantic Canada areas, the restrictions were stiffened into outright bans on non-essential travel from other provinces on several occasions, with exceptions made for work, medical appointments, and humanitarian purposes. The different areas in Canada have had the inter-province travel ban that requires those traveling to self-isolate the moment they arrive. They have also had recommendations against traveling unnecessarily movement, but these regions have been sluggish in enforcing the isolation policy. This allowed people to freely move within provinces, contributing to an increase in COVID-19 cases.

Citizens Goodwill

Without the political will and leadership to transform goodwill and sound science into simple, practical policy, the region’s collective ethic would be inadequate. Canadians have demonstrated their eagerness to make self-sacrifice in the interest of their safety. A majority of the residents in the Atlantic region support the measures to help prevent the spread of the pandemic. They are supportive of the actions even under contradicting circumstances (de Lannoy et al., 2020). With these measures, some Canadian areas have experienced anti-lockdown and anti-mask protests; the protestors have played a leading role in public debate. The media frames these initiatives as politically divisive.

Small groups of opposition may impact public discourse by attracting mass media coverage and using social media to distribute their messages. This is a tactic used by activists of all colors to accomplish objectives that may or may not be in the public interest for a variety of reasons. With reliable information, a government does not require consensus for it to protect the public’s health. Governments are supposed to decide what is suitable for the people and not the ethics when facing a crisis.

Effective Ways of Managing the Pandemic

Enact A Staggered Transition to A New Normal

The belief that an immediate return to normal would not be feasible is at the heart of change management. Instead, the transformation will be carried out in a staggered manner, with culture, systems, and services progressively reopened, possibly in new forms. During each process, restrictions may be modified, and previous stricter measures may be re-implemented (Habersaat et al., 2020). If people believe they are or will soon be returning to normal during this complicated process, their behavior can hasten the emergence of a second wave of the outbreak. The COVID-19 changeover entails identifying and communicating particular phases ahead of time while also allowing for the complexity of the outbreak’s evolution, preparing people for expected changes to the response strategy, and transparently communicating what is understood, and what is unknown, and the parameters used to make decisions.

Balancing Individual rights against the common good

Governments worldwide are forced to impose temporary limits on human rights such as freedom of movement, freedom of speech, and the right to practice religion in groups due to the pandemic. Cultural differences influence willingness to behave for the good of society, and it is more prevalent in communist countries than in nonconformist countries, where maximizing personal gain is the priority. Efforts to protect public health, on the other hand, should uphold fundamental rights such as freedom of expression, privacy, due process of law, non-discrimination, and religious freedom (Odedra et al., 2020). Restrictions that are not justified can jeopardize public support for the pandemic response strategy and public confidence in the authorities.

Prioritize those who are most at risk of adverse outcomes

The elderly are the most vulnerable individuals in society, surveys and quick evaluations aid in identifying priority groups that are most likely to suffer. Basic needs, such as food, safe housing, health care, social care, and jobs, should be considered in national response strategies and an awareness and recognition of the challenges these various groups face.

Conclusion

The COVID 19 pandemic has posed a considerable problem globally since the second world war. The pandemic has led to a worldwide health crisis, with most countries enforcing partial or complete lockdown. In what began as a health crisis, the coronavirus spread has caused more problems that are beyond healthcare. As a result of these restrictions, there have been numerous ripple effects of the virus, including a slowed economy and overwhelmed healthcare systems on the brink of collapse. Being a new virus, it might be considered the great equalizer in the 21st century as all countries grapple with coming out of the effect of a pandemic. No government or community was sufficiently prepared to handle this situation. However, there are regions of the world whose responses to the pandemic were exemplary. Even though most areas were taking a beating from the effects of COVID 19, these regions have come out of the impact of the pandemic better than they ever were.

Among the places where the management and containment measures worked substantially well are Saskatchewan and the Atlantic provinces in Canada. As the virus continued to spread across the world’s regions, the area of Saskatchewan put in place some measures to make them prepared to deal with the virus. They laid out the plans, which were implemented adequately once the first case of the coronavirus was reported. Instead of not waiting for the pandemic storm to pass, they proactively set up measures that allow its residents to transition to the containment measures as the new normal. On the other hand, the Atlantic region in Canada also put out containment measures that would help them protect their population. As the rest of Canada struggled with the rising number of infections and death, this region implemented strict standards on movement from outside, ensuring that the residents were protected from importing the disease.

As the world struggles with the consequent waves of coronavirus infections, the successful management of the pandemic by Saskatchewan and Atlantic provinces in Canada provides a ray of hope that the strict containment measures are feasible and proper way to deal with the global health crisis. There is a need for more countries to undertake an appropriate analysis of such regions to help them deal with the disease. There is even more hope as more vaccines are rolled out into more areas of the world. The rollout of these vaccines will also require proper and timely management of the programs, as witnessed in the spread of the virus. The successful management of the virus is based on how more regions will adopt the strict planning and implementation of the vaccination programs. As a result of this, the role played by the two Canadian provinces will be used as a blueprint for the proper management of the coronavirus pandemic.

As more regions come to terms with the fact that handling the pandemic is the new normal, they must do so through learning from areas where we’re able to manage the virus. Furthermore, it is essential to acknowledge the ripple effects of the pandemic and provide practical ways that will be used to mitigate the general population from the adversative impacts of the same. The pandemic is bound to remain a global issue for a longer time than anticipated. The proposed measures by health organizations and economic actors must be implemented.

Reference

Béland, D., Lecours, A., Paquet, M., & Tombe, T. (2020). A Critical Juncture in Fiscal Federalism? Canada’s Response to COVID-19.Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique, 53(2), 239-243. Web.

de Lannoy, L., Rhodes, R. E., Moore, S. A., Faulkner, G., & Tremblay, M. S. (2020). Regional differences in access to the outdoors and outdoor play of Canadian children and youth during the COVID-19 outbreak. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 111(6), 988-994.

Fauci, A. S., Lane, H. C., & Redfield, R. R. (2020). Covid-19—navigating the uncharted.

Habersaat, K. B., Betsch, C., Danchin, M., Sunstein, C. R., Böhm, R., Falk, A.,… & Butler, R. (2020). Ten considerations for effectively managing the COVID-19 transition. Nature human behaviour, 4(7), 677-687.

Merkley, E., Bridgman, A., Loewen, P. J., Owen, T., Ruths, D., & Zhilin, O. (2020). A rare moment of cross-partisan consensus: Elite and public response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique, 53(2), 311-318.

Odedra, D., Chahal, B. S., & Patlas, M. N. (2020). Impact of COVID-19 on Canadian radiology residency training programs.Canadian Association of Radiologists Journal, 71(4), 482-489. Web.

Safari, N., Price, G., & Chung, C. Y. (2021). Comprehensive assessment of COVID‐19 impact on Saskatchewan power system operations.IET Generation, Transmission & Distribution, 15(1), 164-175. Web.

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