Recently, the coronavirus pandemic or COVID’19 has affected over 378,000 people worldwide and has been the cause of over sixteen thousand deaths so far. The World Health Organization has encouraged governments to encourage social isolation and take drastic measures to control the further spread of the disease.
So far, a big number of countries around the world are taking steps including complete lockdown for weeks and even months till the risk of the virus has gone down. Travel restrictions, public gatherings, and events are also banned in nearly all countries.
While new reports from China have shown that no new cases of coronavirus have been diagnosed in Wuhan and there are plans to re-open routes to mainland China soon after the situation has been cleared, the cases in other countries are increasing.
Secondly, Italy has surpassed China and become the country with the worst impact of the virus where six thousand deaths as a result of the epidemic have been reported in the time span of two weeks.
Furthermore, the World Health Organization has stated that the pandemic is still accelerating even though the situation in China has comparatively improved.
Consequently, the practice of complete lockdown of countries continues with Britain being the latest one to join others and ordering people to stay at home and only leave in emergencies.
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During his address on national television, the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson declared a three-week lockdown nationwide. According to sources, the lockdown was proposed and implemented after seeing crowds of people gathering on roads, parks, and malls during the past weekend.
Britain’s coronavirus death toll has now passed three hundred. Therefore, Johnson emphasized the importance of staying home during his address.
Since Europe has become the new center for coronavirus pandemic, the number of deaths and cases have been seen to increase. Till now, official sources have reported ten thousand deaths due to coronavirus infection in Europe alone.
The worst-hit countries are Italy with six hundred deaths reported within a span of a day followed by Spain and France.
In the midst of the crisis, Antonio Guterres, who is the Secretary-General of the United Nations has urged for a ceasefire in warzones, thereby stating that the coronavirus pandemic can only be controlled by uniting against it.
More specifically, he has stated his views in the words “The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war,” after the diagnosis of the first confirmed case of coronavirus in Syria.
Additionally, since the epidemic has also had a big impact on trade and international relations, China and France have both called an emergency meeting among the G20 major economies.
In the United States, conflicts between Republicans and Democrats have stopped the success of the proposed two-trillion-dollar rescue package for saving the country’s economy.
On the other hand, the virus continues to hamper trade between both sides of the Atlantic. Events such as these are raising fear of a global economic crisis similar to that of the Great Depression.
Kristalina Georgieva, who is the chief of IMF, has commented on the situation saying the IMF is “ready to deploy all our $1 trillion lending capacity”. However, he has also shown concern over how the recession may be as bad or even worse than the Great Depression.
So far, health experts combined with organizations as hopeful about controlling the situation as soon as possible. Some experts have suggested that the coronavirus pandemic may be controlled in the majority of the countries till the month of June.
However, governments are still required to continue their preventive measures until any big improvements are reported on a global scale.
