Drawing Parallels

The current global scenario is unprecedented. It is having consequences we have never seen before. The virus has taken a toll on almost every human activity.
Everyone is looking for answers to the same questions - will this end? If yes, then how long will it be?
        Countless researchs have taken place; all kinds of rigmaroles have already been suggested for an upward turn of the economy; and numerous figures have been estimated. But we still don't know how exactly everything will be after a few months.
        Governments around the globe and their people are made to choose between life, death and the economy. Something of this severity has not been experienced by mankind before. Or, is it?
        Experts have compared the current global crisis with a bunch of other virus epidemics and pandemics like American Plague, Russian Plague, Great Plague of London, Yellow fever epidemic and Asian Flu epidemic. But the immenseness of the virus prevailing today exceeds all of these.
Finally, with regards to the economy, comparisons were made with the Financial Crisis of 2008. But even then, people were going to their workplaces; production of goods and services had not stopped.
        I personally feel that the current fight against the pandemic isn't any less than a war, or let alone the Second World War. Let's draw some parallels.
        During wars, there is stoppage of activity everywhere; factories, offices, educational institutions, etc are all shut. Only a few percentage of the population is engaged in the war against the enemy. Today too, we experience similar turn of events - except that the enemy is the virus, and that the people fighting the enemy are the doctors and the medical staff.
        During wartime, production resources are all transferred in generation of military equipments and other essential food items. Only today, the military equipments are replaced with masks, hand sanitizers and medicines.
        People never know how long a war may last. There is abundant fear in the minds of the people as to availability of food and other essentials. They end up hoarding them. The current stock out in markets explain similar turmoil.
        Wars squeeze a number of economies financially leading to soaring debts.The magnitude of havoc that the virus is currently causing will have an effect on social classes across the globe, especially on the middle and the lower classes. Even with the help of The World Bank, The IMF and such other institutions, the virus will surely be a catastrophe to the financials of almost every nation. Most importantly, it will damage the most important asset - humans.
        Any happening on such a scale, let alone war, where the lives of millions is at risk, requires co-operation at the individual level, but often ends up disintegrating nations at the large. Even the Second World War somewhere sowed the seeds of the Cold War. The current scenario hasn't been unknown to such international politics. While various nations have already laid the blame on China for the virus and it's spread around the globe, how all this affects the trade agreements further, remains to be seen.
        The after effects of the Second World War had lasted for decades. If the virus follows the same trajectory, well... There are only guesses. No one can predict exactly how this is going to end; but one thing that we know for sure is that, when this does end, the stability of the world as a whole will be pretty shaken.
        The Second World War was one of the events that transformed the 20th century, causing the death of around 3 percent of the world's population. The Corona pandemic will surely transform the 21st century, but to what extent? By experiencing the scale of the virus and the ways in which it is fundamentally changing the world, it can be sadly concluded that the present knowledge with the mankind to deal with such a pandemic has proved insufficient.




~Rtr. Akshay Jagani