COVID-19: Health, Economic, and Political Impact Explained

Introduction

Almost a year ago, COVID-19, a novel coronavirus, first emerged as a major health epidemic in China; now, it has spread around the globe, not only killing people but also bringing economies to a halt.

While most people are aware that there is a global COVID-19 pandemic currently impacting people, there has been a sufficient amount of intentional and unintentional misinformation about this strain of the coronavirus that many people do not understand the extent of the problem. The COVID-19 pandemic is the most significant epidemic or pandemic event to hit the world since the Spanish Flu of 1918 and 1919. By the end of that pandemic, between three and five percent of the world's population had died as a result of a particularly virulent strain of influenza (Roos, 2020). It also led to a massive economic struggle for people around the globe, including thrusting the United States into a two-year depression.

This pandemic event shares many similarities with the Spanish Flu, but also some significant differences. Ways that it is similar include the health impacts of the disease, some of the risk factors, and containment efforts. Ways that it is different include overall mortality rates, the economic impact of the disease, and how COVID-19 influences politics.

Thesis: Although a smaller percentage of people around the globe are likely to die from COVID-19 than died from the Spanish Flu, it is likely that COVID-19 will have a more dramatic and long-lasting effect on global politics, the economy, and long-term health than the Spanish Flu pandemic did.

What Is COVID-19?

The coronavirus known as COVID-19 is one of many coronaviruses. It is often called a novel virus because it was first identified in humans in 2019. The term "coronavirus" refers to zoonotic viruses that cause illnesses in animals and can be transmitted from animals to humans. There are several types of coronaviruses, but most of them cause mild illnesses in people. However, there have been some other significant coronaviruses that have caused local epidemics and demonstrated pandemic potential, such as the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). Although the term refers to a range of illnesses, coronaviruses generally target the respiratory system and produce symptoms ranging from mild to severe pneumonia and death.

COVID-19 has a more dramatic impact on many people's health than prior coronavirus infections, and it also has a wider range of effects. In some people, it can be asymptomatic. In others, it can cause respiratory and gastrointestinal problems. For those most severely impacted, it can impair breathing and cause organ failure, resulting in death. COVID-19 is believed to have originated in Wuhan, China, where the initial point of animal-to-human transmission likely occurred in a market selling both live and dead animals for human consumption. The genetics of the virus suggest that it originally began in a bat, though it may have passed through other types of animals before reaching humans. The disease appears to have the ability to evolve rapidly, with different strains impacting different areas of the globe. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a global pandemic on March 11, 2020 (Cucinotta & Vanelli, 2020).

Health Impact and Mortality

The health impact of COVID-19 depends on a number of factors. For many people, the symptoms may indeed be similar to a regular seasonal flu, and in fact many people have the disease and are asymptomatic. This has led to dangerous statements that COVID-19 is no more dangerous than the flu, which is not true for several reasons. First, for those who experience significant symptoms, COVID-19 does appear to be deadlier and more health-threatening than recent strains of the flu. Second, modern medicine does a great job of handling the flu through vaccines that help stop the disease's spread, limit symptoms in those who do get sick, and retrovirals that treat the disease. While better COVID-19 treatments are being developed, doctors were scrambling to find effective interventions when the pandemic initially emerged. These improvements can be seen in mortality rates, which have dropped significantly since the disease first appeared and are lower in countries where patients have access to quality medical care. This is one reason why it has been so important to flatten the curve of the coronavirus's spread; many early COVID-19 deaths occurred because there were not enough hospital beds or medical professionals to care for the ill and dying.

One of the real problems with determining mortality rates from COVID-19 is that some deaths have certainly been missed. This is an expected outcome whenever a new disease appears; early deaths are unlikely to be attributed to the disease. It is such a well-established phenomenon that researchers are always aware that these numbers may be underreported. That is why "in times of upheaval — wars, natural disasters, outbreaks of disease — researchers need to tally deaths rapidly, and usually turn to a blunt but reliable metric: excess mortality. It's a comparison of expected deaths with ones that actually happened, and, to many scientists, it's the most robust way to gauge the impact of the pandemic" (Viglione, 2020). In many of the countries currently impacted by COVID-19, the number of excess deaths is higher than the number of deaths officially attributed to COVID-19, suggesting that COVID-19 deaths may be underreported. Therefore, any evidence about the mortality rates of COVID-19 must be taken with a grain of salt.

Conclusion

While it may be true that the coronavirus will probably kill a smaller percentage of the world's population than the Spanish Flu did, it would be a mistake to call it a less severe pandemic. The modern world is far more globally interconnected than it was a century ago. As a result, any problem significantly impacting health and the economy in a single region has a much broader effect. This global economy and the ease of rapid transport helped the pandemic spread far more quickly than it could have in a less connected era. It also means that the economic impact of the pandemic in the hardest-hit areas has rippled outward to regions across the globe. As a result, it seems likely that the full extent of COVID-19's impact may not be understood for several years to come.

References

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "People at Increased Risk." CDC. 11 September 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precautions/index.html. Accessed 17 October 2020.

Cucinotta, D. and Vanelli, M. "WHO Declares COVID-19 a Pandemic." Acta Biomed, 91(1):157–160. 19 March 2020. doi 10.23750/abm.v91i1.9397.

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Roos, D. "When WWI, Pandemic, and Slump Ended, Americans Sprung into the Roaring Twenties." History. 24 April 2020. Accessed 17 October 2020.

Viglione, G. "How Many People Has the Coronavirus Killed?" Nature. 1 September 2020. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02497-w. Accessed 17 October 2020.