COVID, pandemic and lockdown: How 2020 changed the world
PARIS, France (AFP) — When the world celebrated the dawn of a new decade with a blaze of firework parties and revelry on January 1, few could have imagined what 2020 had in store.
In the last 12 months, the novel coronavirus has paralysed economies, devastated communities and confined nearly four billion people to their homes. It has been a year that changed the world like no other for at least a generation, possibly since World War II.
More than 1.6 million people died and at least 72 million people are known to have contracted the virus — though the actual number is likely much higher. Children became orphans, grandparents were lost and partners bereaved as loved ones died alone in hospital, bedside visits considered too dangerous to risk.
“This is a pandemic experience that’s unique in the lifetime of every single person on earth,” says Sten Vermund, infectious disease epidemiologist and dean of Yale School of Public Health. “Hardly any of us haven’t been touched by it.”
COVID-19 is far from the deadliest pandemic in history. Bubonic plague in the 14th century wiped out a quarter of the population. At least 50 million succumbed to Spanish Influenza in 1918-19. Thirtythree million people died of AIDS.
But contracting coronavirus is as simple as breathing in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“I went to the gate of hell and came back,” said Wan Chunhui, a 44-year-old Chinese survivor who spent 17 days in hospital. “I saw with my own eyes that others failed to recover and died, which has had a big impact on me.”
The scale of the global disaster was scarcely imaginable when on December 31, Chinese authorities announced 27 cases of “viral pneumonia of unknown origin” that was baffling doctors in the city of Wuhan.
The next day, authorities quietly shut the Wuhan animal market initially linked to the outbreak. On January 7, Chinese officials announced they had identified the new virus, calling it 2019-ncov. On January 11, China announced the first death in Wuhan. Within days, cases flared across Asia, in France and the United States.
By the end of the month, countries were airlifting foreigners out of China. Borders around the world started to close and more than 50 million people living in Wuhan’s province of Hubei were in quarantine.
NEW DISEASE, LOCKDOWN
By mid-april, 3.9 billion people or half of humanity were living under some form of lockdown. From Paris to New York, from Delhi to Lagos, and from London to Buenos Aires, streets fell eerily silent, the all too-frequent wail of ambulance sirens a reminder that death loomed close.
Scientists had warned for decades of a pandemic, but few listened. Some of the richest countries in the world, let alone the poorest, floundered in the face of an invisible enemy. In a globalised economy, supply chains ground to a halt. Supermarket shelves were stripped bare by panic buyers.
Chronic underinvestment in healthcare was brutally exposed, as hospitals struggled to cope and intensive care units were rapidly overwhelmed. Underpaid and overworked medics battled without personal protective equipment.
Businesses closed. Schools and colleges shut. Live sport was cancelled. Commercial airline travel saw its most violent contraction in history. Shops, clubs, bars and restaurants closed. Spain’s lockdown was so severe that children couldn’t leave home. People were suddenly trapped, cheek by jowl in tiny apartments for weeks on end.
Those who could, worked from home. Zoom calls replaced meetings, business travel and parties. Those whose jobs were not transferrable were often sacked or forced to risk their health and work regardless.
In May, the pandemic had wiped out 20 million American jobs. The pandemic and global recession could push to 150 million the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2021, the World Bank has warned.
Social inequities, which for years had been growing, were exposed like never before. Hugs, handshakes and kisses fell by the wayside. Human interaction took place behind plexi-glass, face masks and hand sanitiser.
The United States, the world’s biggest economy and a country without universal health care, rapidly became the single worst-hit snation.
The extent to which the novel coronavirus pandemic will leave a lasting legacy is far from clear.
The world economy is also in for a rough ride. International Monetary Fund has warned of a recession worse than that which followed the 2008 financial crisis. But for many, the pandemic is just a spot on the long-term horizon of a far deadlier, far more challenging and far more life-changing calamity.
“COVID-19 has been something of a big wave that’s been hitting us, and behind that is the tsunami of climate change and global warming,” says astrobiologist Lewis Dartnell whose 2014 book, The Knowledge, advises how the world can rebuild following a global catastrophe.