COVID-19 PANDEMIC: A MULTI-LAYERED CHALLENGE TO SOUTH ASIA

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is definitely an unprecedented challenge to the international comity of nations as it has gripped the entire world with over 600 million (over 60 crore) confirmed cases and over 6.4 million (64 lakh) deaths since it was first detected in Wuhan in the People’s Republic of China. The world has been witness to other pandemics in the recent past like the H1N1 Swine Flu in the spring of 2009, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in November 2002. This article will look at three aspects of how the pandemic has affected our societies. Firstly, the pandemic has forced us to change our normal social behaviour and requires a cognitive change in many cases in how we socialise, carry out our daily activities. Second, it has hastened a spread of digital tools and techniques for education and business but at the same time has also widened the ‘digital divide’ given the access to multiple devices and robust internet is not very equitably distributed in the South Asian region. Thirdly, the pandemic has also brought to the fore the importance of science communication which was essential in ensuring that the public at large got vaccinated in large numbers, took, preventive measures like sanitising their hands and wearing face masks.