ISSUE
Friday, January 31, 2025
Volume 16 . Issue 44
Affecting 222 countries and territories, Covid-19 has changed the world we all live in, in these past two years. Indian Weekender looks at the mind-boggling stats the virus has left in its wake.
If there is one thing that has changed the world, especially the way we travel, eat and shop, it has to be the ongoing global Coronovirus or the Covid-19 pandemic.
Coronavirus, which was unheard of about two years ago, is now known to everyone across the globe, having affected nearly everyone in one way or other.
According to reports, the first case of someone suffering from Covid-19 in the world is traced back to November 17, 2019. According to government data seen by the South China Morning Post, a 55-year-old from the Hubei province in China could have been the first person to have contracted Covid-19.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on January 30, 2020, and a pandemic on March 11, 2020.
As the pandemic continues to affect countries globally with many countries experiencing further waves of infection and the number of new coronavirus cases worldwide continues to fluctuate, Indian Weekender looks at how the coronavirus pandemic has changed the world in the last two years, especially in New Zealand and India.
As of November 16, 2021, there were over 254,711,687 global cases of Covid-19. Some 230 million people had recovered from the disease, while there had been 5.1 million deaths.
The United States of America has seen the most number of Covid cases currently more than 48,072,898 since the pandemic began and 784,779 deaths so far.
Closer home, the first case of Covid-19 was reported in New Zealand on 28 February 2020. It was a woman in her 60s who had recently visited Iran and returned to Auckland on February 26, 2020. As of November 16, the country has had a total of 9,088 cases and 35 people have died from the virus.
On the other hand, on January 30, 2020, India reported its first case in Thrissur, Kerala, which rose to three cases by February 3, 2020; all were students returning from Wuhan, the epicentre of the pandemic. India has seen 34,456,401 Covid-19 cases so far, there have been 463,852 deaths and 33,861,756 people have recovered so far.
Dealing with the unforeseen challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has taken a significant toll on people all across the world. The way we shop, the way we travel has all changed due to the pandemic. Nobody would have thought of lockdowns and the need to wear a mask while going out but unfortunately, it has become the way of life globally now.
In December 2020, a new variant, Delta, was first discovered in India and it was just months before it spread like wildfire across the world. Far more transmissible than the alpha variant, which NZ had succeeded in conquering to the envy of the whole world, Delta finally showed up on NZ shores in August, sparking the longest ever lockdown in Auckland – 90 days and still going.
Delta caused the world’s longest lockdown in Melbourne and had Australia reeling for several months with Fiji turning out grim statistics in the Indo-Pacific region. At the time of writing, both Australia and Fiji are poised to open their international borders to each other while there is no word about such a move in NZ.
Vaccination the best defence
As a response to combat the virus, vaccination is the best defence and each country is doing its bit on to get as many people vaccinated as possible.
More than 56.3 percent of the world’s population has received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. 7.54 billion doses have been administered globally so far.
In New Zealand, more than 7,233,783 doses have been administered so far and 90 percent of the eligible population has got their first dose and 81 percent are fully vaccinated.
It was on February 3, 2021, the Government formally authorised the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for use in New Zealand and on February 20, 100 nurses became the first people in New Zealand to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.
India began the administration of Covid-19 vaccines on January 16 2021. In India, 12,97,84,045 doses have been given so far. India initially approved the Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine (manufactured under license by Serum Institute of India under the trade name Covishield) and Covaxin (a vaccine developed locally by Bharat Biotech).
But now, Sputnik V (manufactured under license by Dr Reddy's Laboratories), Moderna vaccines, Johnson & Johnson vaccine and ZyCoV-D (a vaccine locally developed by Zydus Cadila) and other vaccine candidates undergoing local clinical trials.
The Covid 19 pandemic has certainly impacted a lot of sectors especially tourism, hospitality and retail globally. Talking about NZ which has always been known to be a sought after tourist destination, in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic, the tourism industry contributed nearly 10 percent to NZ’s GDP according to Stats NZ 2019.
However, the Covid-19 travel restrictions caused a loss of tourism revenue. The impact of Covid-19 on the global tourism sector has been unprecedented. In New Zealand, from March 2020, borders have been closed, halting international tourism. As per Stats NZ, in the September 2021 year compared with the September 2020 year, the number of visitor arrivals was 208,000, down by 2.0 million.
the Covid-19 pandemic is arguably the most significant global crisis of recent times but with the vaccination drives going on in full swing, there seems to be the hope that things will get better.