Contemporary

Issues

Health crisis management

BY: Asmaa Abubaker (17102447),

Dina ahmed fawzy Al Fawal
(17100450)
Under supervision: Professor Heidi Amer
Contemporary Issues
Introduction
The world has changed with the outbreak of a virus, that has long existed yet has not been as
dangerous as it is today. It is a lethal virus that has caused 3.26 million deaths since its outbreak
in late 2019 beginning 2020 until this day present. Researchers have been racing against time to
come up with vaccines and medications. Medicine and vaccines were effective but not enough to
cease the vicious spread of this virus. Worldwide, governments are restricting the freedom of
their citizens by applying curfews and closing public places, some countries had to close their
borders and allow limited number of people to travel to and from countries by air and land.
People had to accommodate to the new norm of social distancing and wearing face masks along
with keeping a required level of hygiene for protection from the disease. Even more the world
has been changed and people do both schooling and work from their homes. Medical experts and
researchers defined this virus and has put this world under a new era of the pandemic.
Coronaviruses are comprised of a large family of viruses, all of which may cause illness in both
animals and humans. Some of the coronaviruses cause respiratory infections which range from
the common cold, to diseases that are more severe such as the middle east respiratory syndrome
(MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Yet the most recent member of the
coronaviruses discovered is the one that causes what is known as Covid-19. It has a long history
which will be mentioned in detail in this paper.
Furthermore, the human defense mechanism, the immunity system had to adjust and produce
antibodies to fight the virus and overcome it. To detect the presence of the COVID-19 medical
experts identified two types of tests to detect COVID-19 patients since the outbreak of the
pandemic. Once of these tests is the PCR test, this was a molecular diagnostic technique based
on a genetic material that can show the active COVID-19 infection. This test depends highly on
the presence of the viral genome in the sample being studied for diagnosis purposes. The other
type of test is known to be a serological test that is dependent on the antibodies produced by the
body against the viral protein. It identifies those patients whom developed an adaptive immunity
as a response to the virus being part of a current active of past infections. There are three types of
antibodies which include the: IgG, IgM, and IgA that can be noted as a response to the virus. The
two tests together produce a more accurate diagnosis to the virus. However, because of the 2
weeks’ time it takes for the antibodies to be detected immune tests are not effective to expose
early infections. These tests are only effective when there is a second infection of the virus.
Further down will be discussed in detail what has occurred in the international community and
how the international community responded to the new epidemic world humanity found
themselves in.

History
The coronavirus dates back to the 1965, where researchers at the common cold research unit in
the UK, in Wiltshire specifically reported a cultivating virus B814. A boy had this virus,
researchers Tyrell and Bynoe had described the pathogen as being virtually distinct virus to the
other known viruses of the human respiratory tract. A year after, two professors; Dorothy Hamre
and John Procknow in the university of Chicago founded a new virus labelled as 229E isolated
from a medical student. According to them it was another virus that is different from the know
respiratory viruses.
Scientists at the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases in 1967 reported a new virus
using same methods used to culture the virus of B814 to grow a new human virus with a similar
morphology calling it OC43. A year later the researchers of the mentioned viruses, b814, 229E
and OC43 along with the researcher who first imaged the coronavirus, June Alemeida, proposed
to categorize these viruses as belonging to the Coronaviruses. These viruses have a what so
called the characteristic ‘fringe’ of projections of 200 A long. These are rounded or more likely
to be petal shaped referred to as solar corona.
Moving on to the 2000’s, in 2003 an international group of researchers reported an outbreak of a
very dangerous respiratory syndrome (SARS). This began in 2002 in southern China and was
caused by a new human coronavirus. A year later researchers at the Erasmus Medical Center in
Netherlands noted a coronavirus which was referred to as NL63, diagnosed in a child with
pneumonia. Later down the years, in 2005 a group of researchers based at the university of Hong
Kong recognized another coronavirus and called it HKU1, in two patients with pneumonia. This
has farther expanded to reach the Arab countries, where in 2012 researchers at the Erasmus
Medical center found out a new coronavirus calling it MERS-Cov. This was isolated in a mane
with pneumonia and kidney failure. Lastly the final outbreak that caused the world pandemic
was founded in late 2019, early 2020 where a team of researchers in Chine identifies the cause of
the disease in Wuhan. This is referred to as SARS-cov-2.

Types and characteristics

Moving on to the different types and characteristic, there are four subtypes of coronavirus known
as Alpha, beta, gamma and delta. Yet scientists use such classifications to categorize multiple
species. The following seven types are known to be the human coronavirus strands, these include
229E (alpha), NL63 (alpha), OC43 (beta), HKU1 (beta), MERS-CoV, a beta virus that causes
Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), SARS-CoV, a beta virus that causes severe acute
respiratory syndrome (SARS), SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19. SARS-CoV-2, belongs
to the beta subgroup of the coronaviridae family which are enveloped viruses.
Four of the mentioned viruses cause mild illnesses in both the upper and lower airways, nose,
sinuses, through and lungs. Yet the SARS-CoV led to the being of the SARS epidemic in 2002-
2003. Whilst the MERS-CoV caused the outbreak of the MERS in 2012, whilst the SARS-CoV-
2 is the virus responsible for the Covid 19 pandemic. These three cause even worse sever
illnesses.

In conclusion the four subfamilies of corona; alpha, beta, gamma and delta originate from
different sources. Alpha and beta coronaviruses stem from mammals, however the gamma and
delta were recognized in both pigs and birds. The beta coronaviruses are referred to as bat-
coronavirus and analysis indicate that the RNA sequence of the 2019 corona viruses resembles
about 90% to the bat coronavirus. Beta-coronavirus causes acute diseases while the alpha
coronaviruses cause asymptomatic of a mild symptomatic disease. Hence the 2019 nCoV is
known to cause critical diseases and fatalities.

Impact of corona virus on global economy:

The corona virus negatively affected the global economy regarding various aspects such as
manufacturing sector, supply chain, aggregate demand, commodity trade and prices, exchange
rates, banks and other financial institutions and capital flows. Many countries’ economies have
been aggressively affected by the outbreak of the virus especially the ten countries which were
hit hardest by the virus and those ten countries are considered the ten largest economies in the
world which worsened the case. The most affected countries include: USA, Germany, China,
Britain, France, Japan and Italy. Those hardest affected countries are considered vital to the
health of the Global economy as they account for 41% of the world’s manufacturing exports,
60% of the world’ supply and demand and lastly 65% of the world’s manufacturing, those
countries also constitute pivotal members in the global value chain which will adversely affect
all the nations of the world. The negative economic consequences of the pandemic are mainly
due to two main reasons. The first reason is that workers and producers are sick or caught the
virus so they aren’t working nor producing GDP. The second reason is the impact of the public
and private containment measures such as social distancing, closing schools, restaurants and
factories, travel restrictions and quarantines.
In this section, each economic aspect will be addressed. The first aspect is the manufacturing
sector. The manufacturing sector is the most likely to be affected as a result of the Corona virus
outbreak. Simply, due to the demand disruption as the manufactured goods are postpone-able
this is mainly due to the economic recession which lead to drops in aggregate demand in addition
to the purchase delays performed by consumers and investment delays by firms. Another issue
concerning the manufacturing sector is supply disruptions that will negatively affect production
patterns because as previously said the pandemic is focused on the world’s biggest
manufacturing economies such as East Asia and other industrial giants such as the USA and
Germany. Consequently, the less affected nations and other developing countries will find it very
hard and expensive to import the necessary industrial inputs from the hardest affected nations
and subsequently from each other. In other words, the cost of production will increase in the less-
affected nations as they depend on the most-affected nations to purchase their production inputs.
Another aspect of the economic effect of the corona virus is the impact of the pandemic on the
aggregate demand. The effect on demand can be classified into physical and psychological. The
physical aspect is mainly due to closing the stores and restaurants and other retail outlets so the
consumers are prevented from getting to stores and hence their demand on the goods and
services disappear from the market. The other psychological part is related to the consumer
behavior as consumers tend to delay or postpone their purchases. On the other hand, companies
tend to delay their investments which will hinder the economic cycle and lead to economic
recession all over the world. Another justification for the declining demand, is that consumers
are not working and consequently they are not getting paid which means less income so they will
not be able to purchase and the demand will decline eventually.
One of the sectors that has been roughly affected by the pandemic is the banking sector. Simply,
the pandemic lead to the bankruptcy of many corporations and those corporations were
borrowing from banks to finance their projects, assets and growth. Therefore, as a result of the
corporations’ bankruptcy, banks were not receiving their loan payments as the corporations were
not able to reimburse the loans they have already taken. Consequently, the banks’ stream of
income was affected which adversely impacted the profitability of the banks and disrupted the
financial intermediation cycle.
Trade is the most pervasive aspect of the economic impact of corona virus as it doesn’t affect a
specific nation, however, it damages domestic economies and spreads internationally. For
example, exports where extremely affected by the spread of the virus due to factory closures,
travel bans, border closing and the like. This was clear in the case of China as it is considered a
giant exporter which exports finished goods and production inputs to many countries across the
world. One of the most affected sectors due to trade deterioration is the automobile sector,
especially in East Asia, the shortage of parts coming from China has forced the Korean carmaker
Hyundai to shut all its car plants in Korea. Moreover, the Japanese firm Nissan closed a factory
in Japan temporarily. The consequences have even reached the automobile industry in Europe, as
Jaguar Land Rover has announced that it might run out of parts from the end of February.
Another aspect of the global economic impact of the pandemic is the commodity trade and price.
The most affected commodity during the pandemic was the fossil fuel oils as the Brent oil prices
have declined from 69$ per barrel to about 50$ per barrel. This immensely affected the
economies of the oil-producing countries particularly in the middle east. Moreover, it has been
also estimated that the airlines industry, due to travel ban, will lose about 29$ billion in
passenger revenues which would be partially compensated by the decline in the fossil fuel prices.
Moreover, the outbreak of the virus has also impacted the exchange rate of currencies and the
capital flows across different countries of the world due to the sudden stop of the capital flows.
In response for the drastic negative effects that the pandemic had on the global economy,
countries have been adopting some de-globalization policy reactions in order to reduce the losses
and the drastic negative effects that the outbreak of the virus had on its economy on both the
macro level and micro level. Those policy reactions could hinder the flow of goods, service and
especially people. Companies, individuals and governments are experiencing disruptions which
may eventually lead to sudden de-globalization. Companies are learning lessons that global
supply chains may be interrupted by a health shock such as that of Corona virus and they act
accordingly. Countries are reacting to this by closing borders and depending on their own
resources of production in order to mitigate the effect of global economic distress. Therefore, it
can be explained as the spread of the corona virus has become a force of disintegration between
global economies and de-globalization. Moreover, scholars agree that the virus will become
endemic which means that it will appear periodically. Therefore, countries should prepare
themselves to minimize the economic impacts that a second virus outbreak might have on its
economy.
Summary of the reaction to the Crisis (crisis management) in Wuhan
China:
The first infected cities around the world was Wuhan, China. The government had to implement
certain rules and policies in efforts to mitigate the adverse effects this pandemic has on people.
The first and most crucial step that was implemented by the Chinese authorities to stop the
spread of the virus and flatten the curve in order not to exceed the hospital and medical care
capacity, is the isolation of new cases and tracing the contact, in addition to travel restrictions.
The Chinese healthcare personnel tried to minimize the chance of exposure to Covid-19. This
was done through following the standard of contact and airborne precautions and personal
protection precautions including: gloves, eye protection, masks for respiratory protection and
hand hygiene. In addition to the social distancing measures and quarantine.
Due to the absence of an effective vaccine for the novel Corona virus and the uncertainty of the
situation, alternative medication was used to treat the symptoms of the novel virus. For example,
low dose corticosteroids were used to treat the patients for possible benefit through reducing
inflammatory-induced lung injury and other traditional Chinese medication was used as well
such as snow lotus through immunity enhancement.
To conclude, China has made remarkable action in responding effectively to the spread of the
virus. Thanks to its ability to finance and mobilize resources along with its strong governance
structure, solidarity of the whole society, efficient execution and the strict rules and safety
measures implemented. China was able to address the epidemic faster. Consequently, it took
China one month to recognize the existence of a novel coronavirus after the first case was
reported, this was followed by a series of strict mandatory action in Wuhan and allover China.

In conclusion, this paper started by giving a brief introduction about the outbreak of the Corona
virus in 2019, then a brief history of the virus was introduced and the evolution of the virus till it
reached its current state. Moreover, we started talking about the different types and
characteristics of Covid-19 and its different symptoms. Then, the impact of the outbreak of the
virus on the global economy was addressed and how did the international community reacted
towards the spread of the virus in order to prevent the outbreak of the virus and flatten the curve.
Finally, a brief case study was addressed which is the city of Wuhan where the first appearance
of the virus took place and how did the Chinese authorities contained the situation and avoided
the spread of the virus.
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