The Chinese Sneeze

Earlier, it was said if the U.S sneezes the world catches a cold, today it is China, that has sneezed, and the rest of the world has caught the flu. The recent pandemic has shown us the mirror that how closely we are dependent upon each other, no nation, state or territory is sufficient enough to close its borders, and live on its own production.

The cross-border trade, movement of people, and dependency on inter-nation technology are some of the bonds we share with other countries. In today’s world, banishing one country is not a good move, certainly not, when the rest of the world is heavily dependent on that country to feed the consumerism of other nations.

The rest of the world did not hesitate to pronounce China culpable for spreading the virus, the trades with the country were stopped, the passenger movement was halted, and instead of quarantining the virus, nations tried to quarantine China.

Similarly, the United States followed the same global course of name and blame, by calling the pandemic as Chinese Flu. Whereas the cost of this pandemic is being borne by millions of citizens, as factories are getting shut, schools are being closed, and trading activities are coming to stop, as fourth of this World’s population is being locked down by their respective governments.

The containment of this disease has brutally hit the third estate, 99% of this population. The common men, who are financially dependent upon commercial activities to take place to feed the starving stomachs of their families. However, the students have also been forced to sign up for online classes, which is without any doubt is the best alternative to the traditional classroom methods, but, we live in a country with around 60% of its population making less USD. 4 per day, it is difficult for such households to afford computers and a stable internet connection, which is an additional cost that has hit the parents in addition to the hiked tuition fees.

The economic stability of millions of households is under question, the people are out of jobs, the daily wage earners are starving, and the callous decision of this lockdown has affected them, and their families’ economic health.

This has not only affected the poorer sections of masses but, also the middle classes, increasing their economic woes in already difficult times. Subsequently, it will result in high unemployment rates, which may have serious social implications on this society.

Undoubtedly, the federal government has announced a relief package to the economically displaced population to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, but, we must prepare ourselves for more hardships. Like one thing, this pandemic has revealed is the inability of the human population to fight against nature. This pandemic has revealed fault lines in which the governments were busy in sweeping under their respective rugs.

If the nations had spent on health as much as they regularly spend on military and warfare equipment then we wouldn’t have to worry about such viruses, pandemics or natural calamities. I believe this incident may have jolted the mindsets of war-mongering nations.