In the people’s mind, the origin story of Covid-19 seems well fixed

 In the people’s mind, the origin story of Covid-19 seems well fixed. In the last month of 2019 someone at the now world famous Huanan seafood market in Wuhan was infected with a virus from a wild animal.

The rest is part of a painful history still in the making, with Covid-19 spreading from that first cluster in the capital of China’s Hubei province to a pandemic that has killed about half a million people so far and about 10 million people are infected with the disease.

Stock footage of pangolins a scaly mammal that looks like an anteater have made it on to news around the world, suggesting this animal could be the staging post for the virus before it spread to humans. But there is uncertainty about many aspects of the Covid-19 origin story that scientists are pushing hard to unravel, including which species passed it to a human. They’re trying hard because knowing how a epidemic initiated is a key to stop the next one.

Initially, the virus spreads with in the Wuhan city of Hubei Province of China. China where the pandemic started, responded to the situation effectively. The Chinese government place Wuhan and other nearby cities under a lockdown quarantining almost 50 million people in Hubei province.

China felt the initial brunt of Corona virus pandemic. At its peak of outbreak in mid february, the country recorded more than 5000 cases in a single day. During the end of february, the Chinese authorities went door to door for health checks, by force isolating every resident in make shift hospitals and temporary quarantine shelters.

The authorities didn’t even spare young children,  who has shown even the mild symptoms seperate them from their parents. These efforts proved fruitful and China once the epicenter of the disease soon become successful in getting the things under control.

The Virus then spreads to the West and gradually all over the world. But it seems like the western developed countries were not prepared for this to happen. Soon the epicenter of the pandemic shifts from China to Europe where Itlay become the most effected country by the virus.

The death ratio here was much higher than that of China. The situation got so worse that this virus bring the whole country on it’s knees, as health care system and other administration got failed against the pandemic. UK, France, Germany and other developed countries of the continent also failed to contain the virus and the possible reason behind this was that these countries wasn’t that much prepared for pandemic.

Their wait and watch policy had wasted many valuable lives and as a matter of fact the death rate in these countries were much higher than any other region of the world. If we’re talking about Covid-19 and it’s devastating effects especially on the developed nations, how could we forget the United States? At present, US had the most number of Covid-19 cases and deaths.

According to the Center for Diseases Control (CDC), at present there are about 2.5 million cases in the US alone and more than one hundred thousand deaths recorded as of now. These are devastating numbers for a country especially considering the fact that the US is a super power in the world and it has the best and most advance technologies including a world class health care system. Despite all these facts the number of patients and deaths are way much more in developed countries than the developing countries.

This puts a question mark on the credibility of the health care and disaster management institution of the developed countries.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a well functioning healthcare system requires a gentle financing mechanism, a properly trained and adequately paid workforce, well maintained facilities, and access to reliable information to base decisions on.

Having access to healthcare is seen as a basic right by many folks. Lack of quality healthcare may end up in a very poor quality of life and lower lifetime than countries with a stable and accessible healthcare system. This puts a question mark on the credibility of the health care and disaster management institution of the developed countries.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a well functioning healthcare system requires a gentle financing mechanism, a properly trained and adequately paid workforce, well maintained facilities, and access to reliable information to base decisions on. Were health systems around the world ready for such a grave challenge is a serious question to ponder about.

There are many challenges to the health care system of the developed countries. One of these challenge is Decreasing long term funding. Extenuating the human cost of the pandemic requires huge resources. Trillions of dollars are being plowed into countries to cope with COVID-19 and its fallout. But could more of that funds were spent in preparation, the situation could’ve been better and under control.

In Italy, which has been specifically hit hard, the ratio of health expenses to gross domestic product (GDP) has been decreasing for 3 consecutive years, consistent with the World Health Organization (WHO). The funding cuts meant that even before the virus hit, the country faced a shortage of thousands of doctors and nurses.

In the UK, which is now losing many lives per day, data from NHS England shows that the National Health Service has been besieged, with 15.2 percent of patients looking ahead to treatment for extended than 18 weeks last year. That number was only 8 percent when the waiting time target system was introduced in 2012.

Absence of leadership and expertise is another major challenge for the health care of the developed countries. The U.S ranked first within the ratio of health expenditure to GDP among the world in 2017, consistent with data from the WHO.

Levels of investment in healthcare were much higher, whether or not questions about the efficiency of the health care system persist. But the country is now the epicenter of the pandemic and its hospitals are under severe strain. On top of systemic healthcare failures, there are mixed messages from the highest and a series of questionable decisions on government bodies and personnel in recent years.

In 2018, President Donald Trump dissolved the office of National council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense. It was established to arrange for the subsequent disease outbreak and stop it from becoming a pestilence or pandemic.

Due to the outbreak medical capacity overload creating choas with in the system is another major challenge to cope with. The very rapid spread of COVID-19 has burdens existing medical capacity to breaking point in many countries around the world.

A comparison of the ratio of confirmed infected patients to the hospital beds and medical staff in China, Italy, the U.S. and the UK, indicates that China has the lightest burden. A confirmed COVID-19 patient can be nationally allocated to 79 medical staff and 72 beds in theory, if non-COVID-19 patients are not counted.

It seems like the existing hospitals and other healthcare facilities are not enough for the outbreak like this and reserve places and stocks should be aligned to decrease the burden on the existing health care system. Another major challenge for the developed countries coping with the pandemic, is the shortage of medical equipments and medical staff. The requirement of the ventilators is highest since it’s very production.

The wasn’t prepared for this kind of an onslaught. A very big amount of face masks, surgical madks and N95 masks is also required through out the world. The most threatening condition is that many doctors and other paramedic staff is losing lives. This is a very serious condition because mefical staff is the front line defense in fighting the outbreak and their safety is most important in any case.

The health care system in the west failed to deliver in protecting the staff. Moreover, to treat this much amount of patients, the medical staff is not enough. There should be mechanism to train more people in time of crisis to help the already existing medical staff in coping with the pandemic.

Over and above, the corona virus has also exposed the weaknesses of the World Health Organization. They are acting sort of a powerless watchdog don’t do anything practically but talking a lot. This shows that the world needs an institution beyond the WHO to look into the matter more seriously and professionally. It could be named anything but should be effective enough, where anticipated diseases should be studied, autopsied and managed with a doable approach. World shouldn’t look ahead to another coronavirus pandemic to learn a futuristic lesson.

It already had experienced SARS and MERS. But it didn’t learn much from them and many thinks this is the right time to do it. Ultimately, however, a global recovery will depend on the ability of governments around the world to restrain COVID-19, in a way preventing future outbreaks and allowing countries to reopen for business, schools and other fields of life.

The recovery is a slow process and it will take time but the better ones try to learn not only by their mistakes but previous experiences to emerge out as more stronger than ever

Zeshan Nisar is a student of International Relation. He looks closely at international affairs and political situation of world.. Social issues are his favorite subject.

Contact him : zeshan.kiani170@gmail.com