The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic is first identified in Wuhan China in December 2019. While preparing this write-up in August 9, 2020, more than 20,006,566 cases of the COVID-19 have been reported with a death toll of over 733,297 along with 12,884,605 recovered cases worldwide, indicating the signs of the global alarm. Similarly, over 22,972 total cases are confirmed and almost 75 fatalities have already been observed with more than 16,353 patients recovered in Nepal so far due to the novel corona virus pandemic (source: worldometer ). Since 213 countries and territories around the world and two international conveyances are being affected unsympathetically because of this pandemic, the unprecedented novel corona has widened its impact in the form of economic and financial havoc, human health cursing along with affecting other sociopolitical factors negatively but environmental blessings– causing a 17 percentage drop in carbon dioxide emissions globally throughout the world. In particular, the World Health Organization (WHO) has also officially announced the novel corona virus disease a pandemic on 11 March, 2020. Meanwhile, Nepal is no longer an exception from its grip as COVID-19 has been cascading its cases in Nepal swiftly at present since the first case of COVID-19 outbreak is reported in Nepal on 23 January, 2020. Specifically, the government of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal has officially decided to cancel the the Visit Nepal 2020 campaign on 22 March, 2020 as well due to the adverse effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. Given these scenarios, several aspects of human life in Nepal have been adversely affected economically, financially, academically, socially and culturally due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
To begin with, human being has gone via several plagues and epidemics throughout the course of historical time period. Justinianic Plague (541–549 AD) is the first known outbreak of the first plague pandemic with fatalities about 10 percent of the world’s population, which remarks the start of the Byzantine Empire decline. Similarly, the other global pandemic is the Black Death (1346-1353)–wiping out over half of Europe’s population, which changes the course of Europe’s history.This pandemic has invented the idea of quarantine, isolating infected people from the non-infected ones. Another plague is the Great Plague of London (1665-1666), claiming about 100,000 Londoners in only seven-month period. Again, there is another plague called American Plagues (16th century), killing off about 90% of the indigenous population in the Western Hemisphere, which also marks the collapse of the Inca and Aztec civilizations (source: Wikipedia). This shows that the human civilization is being affected since its existence due to the outbreak of the pandemic in the history with drastic changes in the world economy. Specifically, Nepal has been profoundly affected by the severe earthquake in 2015. Lately, a highly infectious and severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2, COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2), has been spreading and affecting negatively worldwide from December 2019 with its origin at Wuhan city of China. Hence, one can also anticipate a revolutionary major change in the world economy with the end of the COVID-19 pandemic righteously.
This shows that the human civilization is being affected since its existence due to the outbreak of the pandemic in the history with drastic changes in the world economy.
Moreover, the imposition of lockdown in Nepal has first begun in March, remained continued through its renew frequently until its end on July 21, 2020, and thus affected normal lives of people in the Nepalese society. For instance, tourism, one of the crucial sectors of the Nepalese economy, contributes about 7.9% of its GDP (2018) and helps for the generation of employment opportunities directly and indirectly. However, nearly 350,000 employees and employers in the tourism sector, such as trekking, mountaineering and hotels and restaurant industries , have lost their job as a direct consequence of the COVID-19, according to the president of the Trekking Agencies Association of Nepal (Source: The Kathmandu Post). Similarly, there has been negative impact in the educational sector due to the COVID-19 pandemic followed by the poverty and income inequality in the Nepalese economy. Note that schools and colleges have remained to be closed to contain the spread of the pandemic since the mid of March (March 19) in Nepal. According to UNDP, approximately 86% of children are deprived of acquiring education in low human development index countries–like Nepal, whereas about 20% of children from developed countries are not able to receive education because of the COVID-19. Note that Nepal has been advanced to a lower-middle income nation (GNI per capita = $1,090 in 2019) from its previous status of low income nation (GNI per capita = $960 in 2018) based on the notion of gross national income per capita ( pertinent to the pre-coronavirus economic indicators of Nepal) published on July 1, 2020, according to the report of the World Bank’s latest country classifications. Importantly, there can be an increase in the poverty in terms of loss of jobs followed by the lack of new opportunities of jobs. Similarly, the other socioeconomic activities, such as child labor, early forced marriage, permanent drop out of children from schools can also be prevalent during and the post-corona period in the Nepalese economy.
According to UNDP, approximately 86% of children are deprived of acquiring education in low human development index countries–like Nepal
Simultaneously, the impact of coronavirus on the health sector is also deep due to lack of services for patients with diseases other than COVID-19, such as maternal health ( e.g., home births of children instead of hospital), and overall physical, mental, social and spiritual health of the people. Most importantly, even though Nepal has received approximately NPR 879.3 billion (USD 7.8 billion) in fiscal year 2018/2019 as a volume of remittances accounting more than 25% of GDP, the Nepalese remittances is expected to reduce by as much as 28.7 % in 2020–according to the report released by the Asian Development Bank. Besides this, thousands of migrants are expected to return to Nepal due to loss of their jobs in foreign countries followed by the COVID-19 pandemic. It is to be noted that there can be several direct and indirect effects due to COVID-19 in Nepal, such as food insecurity and malnutrition, reintegration of returnee migrant workers as per their interests and skills to job opportunities etc. At the same time, a lot of cultural festivals and events, some kinds of public gathering worshiping functions, are also being adversely affected because of the current pandemic. Consequently, several direct and derived challenges might arise in the Nepalese economy due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Importantly, there can be an increase in the poverty in terms of loss of jobs followed by the lack of new opportunities of jobs.
In addition, the virus called Coronaviridae causes COVID-19. Generally speaking, cough, fever and difficulty in breathing are common symptoms of patients suffering from COVID-19. So, one should avoid direct, indirect (through contaminated objects or surfaces), or close contact with infected people via mouth and nose secretions to resist the spread of COVID-19 among people. Obviously, an infected individual should isolate oneself to contain the spread of the pandemic (source: World Health Organization). On the other hand, various measures can be carried out while moving forward to contain the spread of the COVID-19 in the Nepalese economy. First, the government of Nepal should expand public awareness and share relevant knowledge to public about the COVID-19 through media, newspapers, and government administrative bodies. Second, the remote and e-learning techniques can help to address the the problem of school closure to some extent because something is always better than nothing while considering and resolving issues positively. Third, regarding returnee migrant workers, the government of Nepal should invest and make necessary provisions for self-employment, commercial farming, effective implementation of cooperatives to resolve the problem of financing etc. Importantly, the challenge to reintegrate returnees based on the need of domestic and external markets as well as the skills and interests of returnee migrants is critical. Primarily, public health interventions, such as social distancing (at least one meter away from others), locking down, using mask when outing( if we cannot maintain social distancing at least six feet away from others), applying hand sanitizer while contacting with surfaces and handling commodities , employing no handshakes, cleaning hands frequently, avoiding large social gatherings/parties etc are fundamental procedures to contain the spread of the pandemic COVID-19 in the absence of an effective antiviral for COVID-19 (Source: WebMD). Accordingly, one should be proactively cautious and careful to contain as well as lower the transmission rate of COVID-19 in the community.
Hopefully, the medication and vaccinations come in existence pretty soon to control the pandemic COVID-19. Specifically, the top five vaccine candidates, from Johnson & Johnson/Janssen Pharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca/University of Oxford, Merck, Sharpe & Dohme/International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, Moderna and BioNTech/Fosun Pharma/Pfizer, seem to be promising to fight against the COVID-19 (source: Michigan Health Lab). While going through the history , the world has been suffering from the worst epidemics and pandemics frequently. Obviously, given the spread of recurrence pandemics, it is essential to invest more on the research of the health of human and living beings , especially from the developed countries of the world, in order to cope up with probable future pandemic extremely enthusiastically. Importantly, a special economic support should be lunched from the government of Nepal for the recovery of the real sectors of the Nepalese economy during and after the end of the coronavirus. Thus, it is highly recommendable to all countries of the world for working together cooperatively, developing medications of coronavirus, and combating against the COVID-19 — instead of blaming one another for its cause at least for now.
Despite having less accidents followed by less traffic, less pollution due to sharp decline in manufacturing productions, relatively seeming blue sky globally, the loss of human lives across the world due to the pandemic COVID-19 is not bearable. Note that the control of the pandemic in a particular nation requires the control of the pandemic throughout the world given the world as a global village. Sadly speaking, the effect of COVID-19 in Nepal has become quite serious followed by lifting the lockdown because more than 660 additional cases of COVID-19 have been reported to be positive as of August 9, 2020 after easing up of the lockdown on July 21, 2020 (source: The Kathmandu Post). Since no physical and monetary benefits cannot compensate the cost/price of human lives, there is an urgent need to have a medication and/or a provision of vaccination to control the ongoing pandemic COVID-19 worldwide and in Nepal. As such, it is worthwhile to impose lockdown in the Nepalese economy until having smaller and stable fresh cases of COVID-19 in the absence of medications–provided that there should be no community spread of the pandemic– given the open border between Nepal and India and coronavirus surging cases in India.
All in all, COVID-19 has become a global problem. However, the low level of economic and developmental activities in the Nepalese economy happen due to several factors, such as landlocked geography, weak implementation of policies and programs conjointly with the lack of good governance, political instability (despite the present Oli-led government is the most stable and strongest government in Nepal after 1990, there is yet an intra-party dispute in NCP–yielding a situation of political instability), corruption, small market, lack of resources and skilled manpower, the decade long Maoist Insurgency, energy crisis, trade deficit, under-utilization of natural resources such as hydro resources, under-supply of capital, deficiency of visionary leadership, underdeveloped transportation infrastructure etc even during the pre-corona period. Again, due to the high degree of uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, it adds additional amount of fuels on the fire in terms of low level of developmental projects–affecting socioeconomic, political, cultural, religious as well as day-to-day lives of people across the world and in Nepal. Importantly, COVID-19 gives a crucial moral lesson to the Nepalese as well as the global economy to be self-reliant, invest more on the research and developments of health sector, advance the modern technology, and become prepared for responding emergency incidents proactively to get through probable pandemics, such as the COVID-19, the 2015 Nepal’s severe earthquake, effectively and efficiently on a timely manner.
All in all, COVID-19 has become a global problem.
The last but not least point is that the outbreak of the COVID-19 has not only wickedly challenged the the motto of the Oli-led government: “Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepali,” but also confronted pessimistically to abort the 10.3 percent economic growth envisioned under the Nepal’s 15th five-year plan by the fiscal year 2023-24. Finally, I would like to extend my most sincere and heartfelt condolences for those who have lost their lives due to the pandemic COVID-19, and wish for speedy recoveries to the corona-virus-infected people across the world during this difficult time . Also, I would like to offer my deepest sympathies and pray to the almighty God for providing enough strength to the bereaved families while going through such a tough time. At the same time, I greatly appreciate heroic efforts by all front-line health care professionals to provide health care to the global community in the battle of the novel coronavirus disease.
Narendra Raj Tiwari (Email: [email protected])
PhD student (Economics) at Texas Tech University
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