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What can we learn from the pandemic?
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What can we learn from the pandemic?
(courtesy: THE STAR, 26 May 2020)
The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has jolted the world out of a global public health slumber. We have been woken up to the fact that emerging infectious diseases pose a serious threat to our daily lives, even with our modern sophistication and aspirations for disease eradication — or have we?
The world is opening its eyes to the reality of our interconnectedness in an age of nationalism and partisanship. Although there have been many pandemics before, the current one has arisen in an era of viral information spread and a background of East-West geopolitical quarrel. Indeed, these factors contributed to the initial notion that Covid-19 was a Chinese problem rather than a global one.
Covid-19 has exposed weaknesses in world-famous health care systems and poses an even more menacing test for the weaker systems of most developing nations. The pandemic now calls for innovation on all fronts of society and global health for optimal mitigation.