Effect of the Impact of the Lockdown on Various Sectors in the COVID-19 Era

Abstract

COVID-19 is a viral infection caused by a group of coronaviruses of the Coronaviridae family. These viruses are characterizes as single-stranded, non segmented and causes varying degree of respiratory illnesses from common cold to severe respiratory syndrome SARS and middle east respiratory syndrome MERS. The virus, which named SARS-COV-2 and the third in the series being preceded by SARS-COV outbreak of 2002 and MERS-COV outbreak of 2012 have affected human population adversely and the infection declared a pandemic by WHO resulted in different countries across the globe adopting various strategies to combat the epidemic. Individuals and communities had to adjust their lifestyle to curb, prevent and reduce infection and transmission to the barest minimum. Rules and regulations were made and countries put in place measures to safeguard their territories from the deadly virus. One of the strategies employed was lockdown which impacted the countries in diverse ways such as the decrease in gross domestic product, downturn in economy and lifestyle of people. The lockdown has been reviewed and relaxed in many countries since 2020/2021 however the existence of variants named Delta, Omicron, Delta-Omicron has still put the global community in check. The review is focused on the COVID era and its impact on the global community vis a vis the emerging variants.