Corona Virus
The impact that COVID-19 has had on the world was unprecedented when reports of the virus broke out in late 2019. It has led to devastating effects in the world over. It has led to the unwanted alteration of my yearly calendar, goals, and things I might have looked forward to. It is the same billions of others in the world. However, looking at the virus just from my perspective would be a bit selfish as others have had a more torrid experience, and the events of recent months have altered their lives in ways I cannot fully comprehend.
In China, there has been a loss of lives in large numbers. There are nearly 5,000 people who have died from the COVID – 19 virus in China alone. More than half of those people have come from Hubei province alone. In my opinion, it is quite extraordinary how the nation has managed to control the virus that originated from Wuhan. The work the health officials have done is commendable, and the country should be proud of them a large.
The impact of the virus is enormous, and there has been next to time to prepare adequately. China has been adversely affected by the illness. The quarantine efforts have also altered the economy. The process has used a lot of capital that would have otherwise gone to other critical areas of the economy. I have also observed that through self-quarantine and the curfew, a large proportion of the workforce that makes the economy tick has not been working, and reasonably so. The measures the government has put in place seem to have been working. Most economic sectors in China have also started to revive, streets are cautiously reopening again, and restaurants are beginning to thrive again. I can observe that the rate of the spread of the virus has drastically dropped. A note of thanks can also be passed on to the citizens. They have adhered to the laws in place to make the country’s recovery process quick.
The economy of China also took a huge hit. When I looked at the numbers, they were grim and were evidence of an impending disaster if the disaster had not already descended on us. The country’s industrial output had fallen by 13.5 % during the first two months when compared to 2019. The sales in retail stores had fallen by 20.5 %. The figure is understandable considering that the majority of us wanted to have some cash in our hands and tried saving by buying what we only needed. Fixed asset investment fell by 25 % within the same two months. The sudden halt in buying and selling had brought the Chinese economy to its knees and to lows I have not seen in recent times. I think the situation now is a far cry from how it seemed to be shaping up some months ago; there appears to be a huge possibility the Chinese economy will fully recover from the pandemic.
However, if the damage done to the Chinese domestic market seemed to be immutable, the damage done to the global market seemed worse. China being a country that thrives on the trade of exports, the economic wellbeing of our major markets abroad is essential to the prosperity of the nation. Some major overseas markets are drastically hit, and therefore the exports overseas have been sharply hit. There has been a loss of nearly 300,000 lives at the moment internationally. There are fears that some nations, particularly third world nations, are misreporting or cannot produce the correct figures. Some other pessimists would say some rogue state bureaucrats would be distorting the statistics so that they can solicit external funds or misappropriate their nation’s funds. I, however, think this is not the case and that the countries are not able to keep track of deaths attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The pandemic has brought most of the world major economies to a halt. The spending in different countries has been dramatically reduced, leading to some of the world’s leading nations to provide stimulus packages to their residents. I do, however, think that the world will recover from the global pandemic and will continue to be more successful. China’s trading partners will overcome the epidemic and will once again be able to trade. Although a cure or a vaccine has not been discovered yet, I can see the crisis becoming manageable through adequate preventable measures.