IMPACT OF COVID-19

IN THE SOCIO ECONOMIC CONTEXT OF BANGLADESH

Introduction
While the whole world is experiencing the devastating effect of COVID-19 pandemic, Bangladesh is no
exception. The COVID-19 has caused serious and negative effects on nation’s wellbeing, education,
society and economy in Bangladesh. The kind of primitive measures taken to prevent this pandemic like
lockdown or quarantine hindered normal flow of people, their products and services, capitals, raw
materials which resulted in shut down of regular economic activities. This pandemic situation is no
longer limited to health crisis, but it is expanding its devastating impact on other important socio
economic sectors. According to UNESCO, about 188 countries have closed educational institute which
affected nearly 90% of the world’s students. 60% of total demand and supply of the world and 41% of
world’s exports have been heavily affected by COVID-19 pandemic. There are a lot of papers published
which studied about demographic, epidemiological and the clinical issues of this virus and its outbreak.
This assignment attempts to make a compilation of review of some relevant literature on socio-
economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic in Bangladesh.

COVID-19 overview: Bangladesh perspective

On march 8, 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic was confirmed first in Bangladesh by The Institute of
Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research. In order to stop the spreading of the virus, government
initiated a lot of actions like quarantine in regional or national level, announcing lock down by restricting
free movement, cancelling events, restricting work place accumulation, shutting down educational
institutions, curfews, careful screening in train stations and airports etc. As doing so, the economy of
Bangladesh has been fallen under threat.

During the early stages, because of the lack of accurate knowledge and facts about the virus, about the
infected case, fear of death tensioned up among the people of the nation. Although slowly, by the
blessings of a number of scientific researched, people started to understand about Corona virus and
preventive measures. Primitively, the total socio economic scenario was about to collapse. Even daily
farmers, pharmaceuticals, vegetable producers, poultry farmers were in deep crisis due to lower prices.
Gradually people started to get habituated with the new normal and somehow managed to tailor their
lifestyle. Although some important sectors like education are yet to rejuvenate. We also have seen
second wave of COVID-19 in the last quarter of 2020 and even more devastating situation happen in the
second quarter of 2021, when the number of death reached even 100 per day.
Socio economic implications: literature review
The outbreak of COVID-19 has affected different sectors of economy. At the primary stage of outbreak,
the immediate impact of the pandemic was the shutdown of businesses and factories. As a result, the
regular production got hampered, economies of scale was gone out of control, equilibrium of demand
and supply god damaged. It also effected international relationships by hampering existing economic
programs under government-to-government operations. One study says that Agriculture, Industry and
service sectors that have contributed 18%, 29% and 53% to the GDP respectively are antagonistically
affected by corona pandemic. [2] The following discussion reflects the socio-economic implication of
COVIC-19 in different sectors.

Agricultural Sector
Recently, Bangladesh dairy farmers have sought support from government, because they cannot sell
their cow’s milk due to the latest lockdown imposed in march,2021. Nearly 12 to 15 million liters of milk
remained unsold, which amounts BDT 570 million losses in dairy farmers. [5] Bangladesh exports 70%
crabs in China. Last year, China quits importing crabs for several reasons influencing COVID 19
pandemic. [6] Bangladesh Poultry Industries Central Council said that sales of poultry chicken and eggs
dropped in market because of the lockdown, which caused a loss of 1150 crores. In case of vegetable
also, Bangladesh lost $20 million export earnings. [7]

Industrial sector
Industrial sector is one of the most damaged sectors due to pandemic. Innumerable orders were
cancelled and sources of raw material also got stuck. Hon’ble Commerce minister in a speech said that
nearly 2.6 billion worth of orders in RMG sector has been withdrawn. Besides, global production of
cotton is dominated by China, India, Brazil, Pakistan and USA. Demand in China got low due to long term
lockdown, which actually hampered the international supply and demand equilibrium and Bangladesh
also got affected because of it. [8] India is the largest importer of cotton from Bangladesh. Overall fall in
price of cotton has resulted in a huge loss for Bangladesh.

The pharmaceutical industry is also hard hit by the outbreak of COVID-19. Active Pharmaceutical
Ingredients (APIs) are the raw materials in the pharmaceutical sector. APIs are import dependent in
Bangladesh. Apparently, 95% of APIs (net worth of taka 5000 crore) is imported from China, South Korea
and India. But due to worldwide lockdown, the supply chain got hampered. Yet, COVID-19 has led to
higher demand of sanitizing liquids and medication-equipment. [9]

Service sector
COVID-19 has resulted in severe collapse in service sector. Since the lockdown of 2020, at least one
member in nearly half of the household temporarily or permanently lost their job or were bound to shut
their business due to financial crisis. However, it is also notable that, 57.3 per cent of the household
people involved in business reported that their business was not affected much by COVID-19. A study
found that due to COVID-19, household experienced 29% declination in income and in Dhaka city this
percentage is 34% (Ali and Nazrul,2020) [13]. Therefore, only within the first ten days of lockdown in
March 2020, 6% of all households became jobless and 50% of household lost one-third of their income
[13]. This was because of the severe collapse in service sector.
Health Sector
One of the most crucial sector that is severely hampered by COVID-19 is health sector. The most
pathetic aspect of this pandemic was that it caused unimaginable human suffering and loss of lives.
When infected by COVID-19, one can suffer from fever, hack, breathing issues. In more serious cases, it
causes intense respiratory disorder, pneumonia, cardiovascular breakdown. [1] As per World Health
Organization, there have been 861150 COVID-19 cases with 13,702 deaths in Bangladesh, recorded from
3 January,2020 to 23 June,2021. Bangladesh Government has successfully administered 10079676
vaccine doses so far. [10] Higher death rates indicates that Bangladesh is in a vulnerable position to fight
the outbreak, even after administering so many vaccine doses. The health sector is crucial and need
more supports.

Education sector
COVID-19 has brought severe crisis in the education sector. Specially the urban poor students are hard
hit by the pandemic. Early on March 16, 2020, Hon’ble education minister declared early vacation of
educational institutes for next April 04,2020. [11] Due to increasing number of infected people and
death, the Ministry of Education could not effort to start offline activities of educational institutions.
More than 22.7% urban poor children who were enrolled in schools are not continuing their study since
the lockdown of 2020. Nearly ¾ of children are studying at home. Very few beneficiary households’
children are learning from virtual classes. Overall, the outbreak has changed the existing instructive
framework in Bangladesh. Government also has postponed board exams and university admission tests,
result in mental stress and loss of academic years for the candidates. It also caused loss of year and
increased stress among university going students. Banna et al. [12] in their paper found that graduate
level students suffered from high level stress, which is more than that of undergraduate level or higher
secondary level students. However, the education sector has recently turned into a new direction by
introducing online education system, which was even unimaginable for our country even a decade ago.

Tourism sector
Tourism sector is badly affected by pandemic. Global tourism and hotel business came to standstill due
to lockdown and restriction in travel. People even now are demotivated to travel around world and fear
of using the hotel and using public stuffs. In Bangladesh many small travel agencies have closed their
business, which has made this particular industry a fragmented industry.

Social impact
The outbreak of COVID-19 has created panic not amongst the people of Bangladesh, but also the people
of the whole world. Specially, a developing country like Bangladesh is hard hit by it. During the early
period of the outbreak, the panic reached the sky. There was lack of trustful and official information
about the virus and people have started to believe in the rumors which were spread through social
media and word of mouth. It was advised to wear mask, washing hands every now and then, using hand
sanitizer. But 70% of the people ignored these due to unawareness and illiteracy.

Moreover, this pandemic also impacts on religion as government cancelled prayers in temple, mosque
and churches. Worship and participation through live stream was offered in many churches and
temples. But, as, most of the people in Bangladesh are Muslim, its conservative religious mass
discouraged government’s initiative. People protested the declaration and gathered in mosque to pray
for the recovery from COVID-19. Therefore, a high number of religious people came out to be threat for
Bangladesh.
On the other hand, prevention measures like wearing mask, washing hands through hand wash
surprisingly increased the worth of mask, hand sanitizers, PPE, soap, hand wash etc. to unethical
business people. So, price of these products increased abnormally. A disappointing fact is that, retailers
hiked the price of the mask by 400%, even without any prior warning and explanation.

There is a connection between crime and poverty. Many people have lost jobs and their livelihood has
become at stake. As a result of which, crime has increased during this pandemic. Especially domestic
violence has increased in verbal, financial, psychological and sexual form, that too even by the people
living under the same roof. As people could not go out of their house due to lockdown and safety
measure, one group of people suffered it differently and found it very difficult to accept social
distancing, domestic violence, let alone sexual abuse. Other than this, higher levels of stress, anxiety
symptoms, depression were observed in people, especially among females.

Literature review on relevant articles

A number of journals and articles have been published which give us valuable insight about the impact
of COVID-19 on socio economic condition of Bangladesh. According to WHO (World Health
Organization), Corona virus got 1,773,088 confirmed cases with 111,652 deaths out of all the
confirmed cases by 13th April 2020 and Bangladesh got 621 confirmed cases with 34 deaths by that
date ("Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Pandemic," 2020). World Bank, in the very primitive stage of
pandemic reported about the possible impacts of COVID-19. It implied, COVID-19 outbreak and the
healthcare burden, together with related disruptions, are expected to exacerbate the negative impacts
on employment, household income and livelihood in both rural and urban areas. The president of the
World Bank David Malpass said that the poorest country will hit the most in this economic crisis,
especially those countries which have huge debts. In the developing countries of Asia, COVID-19 is
causing a decline in domestic demand, tourism business as well it is disrupting trade and supply linkage
(Abiad et al., 2020). Another study shows that COVID-19 has pushed 16.5 million people mainly
rickshaw-pullers, transport workers, day laborers, street-vendors, hawkers, construction laborers and
the employees of hotel, motel and restaurants back into poverty (Islam & Jahangir, 2020). Riaz (2020)
found that 20 million people who solely rely on the informal sector jobs for their livelihood have already
lost their jobs and become temporarily unemployed.

Z. Ahmed in his article ‘Informal economy in Bangladesh’ said that Bangladesh is the second largest
exporter of readymade garments and this sector is badly injured by COVID-19 pandemic because of
order cancellation and worldwide od demand of the consumers.

Barua [1] in his study said that pandemic affected international relationships by affecting the existing
and upcoming economic programs. This is because, due to this pandemic, China backed some public
projects under investment and all the financial help came to halt. Currently, China has 7000 projects in
69 countries under government-to-government contact, which actually had a big hit in Bangladesh.
Important projects like Padma bridge, Karnaphuli Tunnel, Padma rail link, Urban transport projects are
highly influenced.

Bangladesh National Women Lawers’ Association in their report found out that there was significant rise
in rape due to this pandemic. According to their report, there were 98 rapes in January 2020, 92 in
February, 67 in March, 76 in April, 94 in May and 174 in June. The more pathetic aspect is that, many of
these crime were not reported to the police amid the COVID-19 outbreak. [3,4]

Conclusion
After World War II, the global people faced the greatest challenge of COVID-19 as it caused crucial
damage to human life and distortion of livelihood. Yet we were lucky enough that, our government has
tactfully handled the long breath-taking pandemic period. Many countries have experience much more
devastating situation than Bangladesh. Government has declared financial package to cover all classes of
people who lost jobs. Also, they are trying to administer vaccine to all classes of people. It is never
possible to mitigate the effects of pandemic individually or only by government, but the awareness and
integrated effort of all sorts of people need to be shown up. Hope we overcome this hard time and
Bangladesh finds the light of success.

References

1. Barua S. Understanding Coronanomics: The economic implications of the coronavirus (COVID-

19) pandemic. SSRN.Electronic Journal; 2020. Available:https://doi org/10/ggq92n
2. BER (Bangladesh Economic Review).Dhaka, Bangladesh; 2020.
3. The Financial Express. BD witnesses rise in crimes after lockdown; 2020. Available:
https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/national/bd-witnesses-rise-in-crimesafter-lockdown-
1596032221
4. 26. The Daily Star. Domestic violence during the time of corona; 2020.
Available:https://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/human-rights/news/domestic-violenceduring-
the-time-corona-1888192
5. Roy R. Mitigating Covid-19 impacts on food and agriculture. 2021;22(44):24.
6. Anonymous. The way Covid-19 is affecting Bangladesh economy; 2020.
Available:http://www.theindependentbd.com/post/237519).
7. The Business Standard, Poultry sector stares at over Tk1,150 crore losses, 31 March, 2020,
8. Lightcastle Analytics Wing. The effect of COVID-19 on Bangladesh’s Apparel Industry; 2020.
Availabe:https://www.lightcastlebd.com/insights/2020/03/29/the-effect-of-covid-19-
onbangladeshs-
apparel-industry
9. Nazrul S. Bangladesh Pharmaceutical Sector Wading through the Pandemic, Light castle analytics
wing; 2020.
Available:https://www.lightcastlebd.com/insights/2020/03/30/bangladeshpharmaceutical-
sector-wading-through-thepandemic
10. Covid19.who.int. 2021. Bangladesh: WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Dashboard With
Vaccination Data. [online] Available at: <https://covid19.who.int/region/searo/country/bd>
[Accessed 23 June 2021].
11. MOE. Ministry of Education. Dhaka. Bangladesh. Available: https://moedu.gov.bd/
12. Banna MHA, Sayeed A, Kundu S,Christopher E, Hasan MT, Begum MR, Kormoker T, Dola STI,
Hassan MM, Chowdhury S, Khan MSI. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental
health of the adult population in Bangladesh: A nationwide cross-sectionalstudy; 2020.
 Available:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341607316_The_impact_of_the_COVID-
19_pandemic_on_the_mental_health_of_the_adult_population_in_Bangladesh_A_nationwide_
crosssectional_study
13. Ali , S., and Nazrul S., 2020. Impact of Coronavirus on Livelihoods: Low- and Lower Middle-
Income Population of Urban Dhaka, Light Castles, Available online:
https://www.lightcastlebd.com/insights/2020/