It’s Day X of lockdown here in Singapore (haven’t we all lost count already? – but to the best of the writer’s knowledge, it’s actually Day 56: the last day, hallelujah!), as we are just completing our lockdown even while various countries in the continent are gradually re-opening shops and businesses. The current virus situation remains volatile throughout the world, although undoubtedly, some nations are faring better than others. Here we examine the timeline of the outbreak, and the global uncertainty surrounding Covid-19’s origins. We also see a multitude of reasons for the disparities in predicament across the globe, and see how big a role leadership has played in the control (or lack thereof) of Covid-19. What does the virus tell us about human behaviour and our tendencies in times of crisis?
The Origins of Covid-19
Adapted from The WHO Timeline
31 December 2019: The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission reported a cluster of cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, Hubei Province. Eventually, a novel coronavirus was identified.
1 January 2020: the World Health Organisation had set up the IMST (Incident Management Support Team) across the three levels: headquarters, regional headquarters and country level
- This enabled an emergency response to the outbreak
12 January 2020: China publicly shared the genetic sequence of COVID-19.
13 January 2020: A confirmed infection emerges in Thailand – the first confirmed case outside of China
22- 23 January 2020: An Emergency Committee was convened to assess whether the outbreak constituted a public health emergency of international concern. Due to the lack of available evidence, independent members from around the world were unable to provide sufficient response, and sought to seek more information before coming to a conclusion.
23 January 2020: Singapore confirms its first case of Covid-19, the infected being a 66-year-old Chinese national.
30 January 2020: 7818 cases confirmed worldwide, with the majority in China, and 82 cases reported in 18 countries externally. China received a “high” risk assessment.
11 March 2020: The WHO confirms Covid-19 as a pandemic due to the widespread alarm and the severity of the virus.
What caused it?
It is public knowledge that the virus first emerged from the now infamous Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, Hubei Province, where live animals (often exotic ones) were sold. Scientists have now declared that Covid-19 likely originated in bats, although they have not yet determined the exact species that managed to transmit the virus to humans. The crucial question key to forestalling future pandemics has not been answered – how exactly was this virus passed onto humans from animals? Evidently, the scientific community remains in the dark as evidence has emerged of human-to-animal transmission of the virus as well; several tigers in a Bronx zoo have tested positive for Covid-19, as the first ever animals to be infected.
Despite the fears of pet-owners that the virus may be transmitted to their beloved cats and dogs at home, there remains no known cases of further animal-to-human transmission besides those affecting animals in zoos. Such a peculiar phenomenon further raises questions as to the right way to tackle the spread of a virus, and whether we ought to be concerned over the potential resurgence of the virus after it has died down in humans. Is there a possibility that after zero new infections in humans, seemingly-innocuous animals will begin transmitting a deadlier, more lethal strain of the virus back to us again? That remains to be found out.
How various countries fare
Global Performance
As of May 12 2020, there have been around 4.2 million confirmed infected Covid-19 persons, with the world’s largest economy (the United States) ironically topping the charts in this case as well with around a third of the infected cases. Around 1.5 million patients have recovered, however, the virus has about a 6% mortality rate where close to around 300,000 others have perished from the virus.
Toluna, a media company based in Paris, has found a way to measure citizens’ satisfaction with their governments’ handling of Covid-19, with government response evaluated across the political aspect, business, community and media. The results are in fact rather expected. With an index score of 85, China takes the top spot with the most Chinese rating its battle against Covid-19 favourably across all four indicators. China is followed by Vietnam (77), and somewhat surprisingly, the United Arab Emirates and India are at the third spot with 59. In fact, New Zealand (56) is the only country in the West with a score higher than the global average (45). This reveals the huge dissatisfaction that those in the West have with their ruling regimes.
East Asia
How have they dealt with it?
Given that the virus outbreak began from Hubei province, it is indeed rather unusual that these Asian nations, in close proximity to the Chinese giant, have been faring better than their Western counterparts. The first confirmed cases were detected in Japan, Thailand and South Korea, where the Covid-19 spread rapidly due to a lack of social distancing measures put in place. As the virus hit Asia in the early days of the global outbreak, the result was insufficient time to respond and a lack of data on the virus itself, leaving scientists frantically scrambling to stop a virus that had the potential to kill millions in densely-populated, thriving cities. Data from the same study done by Toluna indicates that around 70% of Japanese citizens indicated that they felt their government was not ready to deal with the outbreak
Despite such obstacles, various governments are now successfully reopening their countries and allowing citizens to roam the streets again. As early as 8 April this year, China reopened the city of Wuhan, the original epicentre of the outbreak. For the past month, the city has seen low numbers of cases compared to the thousands seen in February, where life has almost gone back to normal. On May 6, the South Korean government began to relax its strict social distancing rules, while still emphasising the need for reduced contact and the social responsibility each person bears for stopping the spread of Covid-19. May 14 marked the lifting of Japan’s state of emergency as the number of infected cases have drastically dropped.
Possible Resurgence?
Some outsiders point out the possibility of new virus clusters and a surge in infected cases (look no further than South Korea, who re-imposed measures), criticising their handling of the situation as rash and impudent given that a cure for the virus has yet to be found while the rest of the world grapples with the outbreak. Although one could certainly say that re-opening economies present health risks, damage to the economy should lockdowns persist far outweighs the little danger the virus poses to the general population. In the event where populations retain some sense of social responsibility and governments take active steps in contact-tracing (such as what South Korea has done), the further spread of Covid-19 can be effectively contained.
Europe
Ah, Europe – the continent spanning the cultural capital of the world, filled with the great works of Picasso, Beethoven as well as the place of birth of various scientific inventions such as plastic and the telephone. Arguably the region with the most tumultuous history with regard to health disasters, from the Black Death to the Spanish Flu, one would have thought its citizens have emerged stronger and more resilient after braving disaster after disaster throughout the centuries. Sadly, this time, Europe’s handling of the virus is second to only the United States in terms of ineptitude. Despite insurance company Aetna International claiming that “the region is home to some of the best and most established health care systems in the world”, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has indicated that Europe suffers from the highest numerical death toll from the coronavirus.
As of 13 March 2020, the WHO deemed Europe the active centre of the pandemic. Although this focal point has since shifted to another affluent continent, Europe has seen the rapid spread of Covid-19 across a relatively short period of time. The number of cases per country had doubled over periods of around a mere 3-4 days, with ‘frontline’ nations such as Italy or Spain seeing the number of infected persons doubling every 2 days. This may be due to the laissez-faire approach adopted by many governments blindly putting faith in their people to follow strict social distancing guidelines (enforced with a lax attitude), which has been unable to curb movement of people and facilitating the spread of the virus.
Hope for the future
Despite all the doom and gloom surrounding Europe’s dismal situation, From June onwards, Italy welcomes travellers and tourists back to picturesque tourist spots.
The United States
One of the last developed economies to be hit by the virus, one would have thought that the nation with the largest GDP in the world would have been adequately prepared. The first case in America was identified in Washington state on January 21, and now the situation has spiralled out of control, resulting in the US becoming a hotbed of infections and extensive community spread. A Reuters report in April suggested that the Covid-19 outbreak in America will soon prove more lethal to the population than any flu season for the past 50-odd years.
The failure of the world superpower to effectively come up with a remedy to the swift spread of the virus has further tainted its less-than-pristine reputation. Rather than acting as a world leader should (in rallying all nations, regardless of ideology or political beliefs together), the Trump administration has instead blamed China. From cutting off critical funding to the WHO in the struggle against the virus, to insisting on referring to Covid-19 as the “Wuhan virus”, and perpetuating the nonsensical conspiracy that the Chinese deliberately used its population to “seed” the virus throughout the world – we can see that the American response effectively hinders global cooperation in battling the deadly outbreak.
South America
The new epicentre of Covid-19, where the deadly virus’ spread has been exacerbated by populist politicians’ flagrant dismissal of the virus and to the incredulity of many, leaders claiming victory over the pandemic despite evidence showing otherwise. As of 25 May, there exists 636,000 confirmed cases and more than 31,000 deaths – one of the highest death tolls in the world with a 4% kill rate. The dearth of medical testing facilities, and the subsequent lack of rigorous testing, in fact suggests that the outbreak is even more serious than the present situation.
The silver lining lies in the hope that these strongmen may see approval ratings nosedive after their abysmal failure to contain the virus (despite it hitting Latin America’s shores relatively late on 4 February), and more capable leaders will be tasked to take up the mantle of dealing with the repercussions of Covid-19’s rapid spread.
Africa
Covid-19 hits less-developed economies the hardest: in comparison with their more well-off neighbours, poorer nations suffer from relatively less-equipped healthcare systems, and an economic system that depends on manual labour with close interaction of people. Africa is almost certainly the poorest continent in the world, where most of the continent’s nations rank amongst the bottom 50 GDPs. The toxic combination of labour-intensive work, as well as a lack of preparation, African economies have taken a beating from the virus, and are hoping to recover.
On 1 June, South Africa just loosened a lockdown in an effort to revive the struggling economy (battered by the strict lockdown imposed by President Cyril Ramaphosa at the end of March, made worse by the fact that it was already in recession before the coronavirus). Despite the immediate surge in cases that came afterward, one could say that the further spread of Covid-19 is worth risking given the lockdown would have caused half the population who live below the official poverty line to perish from lack of basic necessities. Given that the median age of Africans is 18, by far the youngest in the world, and that the virus usually proves fatal to only the elderly, trusting in herd immunity may make more sense.
Public Response to Covid-19
Fragmented & Divided
The deliberate politicisation of Covid-19 has led to a chaotic and disunited response, not the best for fronting a virus that has crippled economies worldwide. Rather than working together, the countries leading in scientific development across the world have decided to come up with a virus by themselves, in a race to be the main leader against the pernicious outbreak. Trump’s presentation of the virus outbreak as a blame game, in which the loser is China and the winner is whoever manages to ‘cure’ Covid-19, encourages individualism and nationalism that heightens tensions between nations even further in the volatile climate of economic downturn. Should countries instead choose to make peace and help one another out, collaborating in search of the cure for the virus, a solution can be found much more quickly and efficiently. For sure, too many cooks spoil the broth – but having only one team working on a cure is much less efficient than the coming-together of bright minds that can piggyback on one another’s ideas to come up with the most ideal vaccine, or whatever the solution takes the form of.
In times of crisis, the worse of us emerge.
No matter that a solution has taken so long to emerge. For the average individual, the focus is on surviving often length and tedious lockdowns imposed by his/her home government, and putting themselves in as secure as a position possible to last. As a result, a slew of panic-buying occurrences has emerged, where some shoppers at an Australian supermarket were even caught on camera brawling over – guess what? – tissue paper. It has become a recurring joke that the ‘hoarding disease’ is spreading more quickly than Covid-19; taking over millions and compelling them to stock up on as many basic essentials as possible. News items that have made the headlines include a violent brawl over toilet paper in Western Sydney, a racially-aggravated assault on a Chinese student in London, and even the hurling of pebbles at security officers Réunion Island – there has been no end of brutality and heartlessness since the beginnings of Covid-19. Billy Ocean’s witticism “when the going gets tough, the tough get going” is ordinarily used as a pick-me-up line for encouragement, but in these unusual times, does it mean only the most savage and most selfish members of humanity will survive the storm of the virus?
For sure, there have been occasional flashes of human compassion here and there, with an outpouring of support for the most vulnerable around the globe. From a national clapping exercise to laud the efforts of frontline essential workers in Singapore, to massively generous handouts for retrenched workers, one may say that there is still some hope for humanity in times of crisis, and claim that well, humans can still be selfless in times of need. Such a view, however positive, only holds true in the circumstances where the humans in need are those that others know personally.
When starting up a charity, or even picking a cause to advocate for, the advice doled out to volunteers and social activists is always “do something you’re passionate about.” Those who lend a helping hand choose for whom or what to act as a pillar of support. Emotions for a cause and the sense that one can make a difference drives that kind of determination. So what does that tell us about when we help and why?
Human Lifestyles & Behavioural Tendencies
Humans have traditionally lived in ‘packs’ or ‘tribes’ – small groups where everyone knows one another and the survival of an individual depended on the survival of the entire community. Assisting another member was akin to benefiting oneself, because ultimately the welfare of an individual was linked to that of others. In the modern-day context, this behaviour manifests itself as “othering”, where humans treat those outside their immediate community in an intrinsically different way from their own members. We see this in everyday life: people from one race, ethnicity or religion automatically treat their immediate friends or fellow brethren with much less hostility and much more warmth than others.
Despite the romantic notion that mankind is inherently altruistic, patterns of behaviour over the years has ultimately informed us of the reality that in fact, we do not treat every person equally. If given a choice to save the life of a brilliant scientist who is on the verge of curing cancer, or your funny best friend who has been pickpocketing the entire city for the last decade, more than 90% of humans would probably pick the latter in a heartbeat. This is best explained by Robert Ardrey in his book The Territorial Imperative, published in 1966. If one accepts the concept that humans are tribal animals without need of “the other,” described as anyone not of their tribe, we can see how humans are more inclined to assist some groups than others. Personal connections, that give one a sense of worth, outweigh moral benefit to the larger community of humankind, which is too vast to cultivate a sense of belonging, anyway.
That is not to say that having personal favourites is a cardinal sin. Humans have adapted to welcome people like themselves over a long period of time out of the necessity of survival, and connecting more easily with those, say, of your own race, doesn’t make you a racist or xenophobe. Such natural behaviour can be kept in check when necessary. Nevertheless, this tendency isn’t exactly harmless either, lending itself to problematic behaviour during the Covid-19 pandemic. We receive countless phone calls and displays of concern from our friends, family or even neighbours – but how often are we concerned about those outside our immediate community? Essential workers who battle the virus every single day are at best, given a measly tip or superficial acts of supposed kindness, while we stock up on essential goods and give those out to our loved ones in fear of others nabbing them first. In times of need, such an irrationally selfish herd mentality propagates throughout the population, resulting in our current situation: where there are enough goods for everyone, but not everyone has enough goods.
Moving Forward
In a pandemic, let’s take some time to give some thought to the truly needy. No matter how disastrous your toilet paper situation may be, the chances are that you have some other form of tissue sitting around in your home, eagerly waiting to be used. In all likelihood, you have a roof over your head and are living in comfortable conditions suited to your needs. Already, you are more fortunate than the approximate 21% of people who do not enjoy “adequate living conditions”. Consider yourself fortunate, and count your blessings.
Show some empathy by perhaps smiling at the fatigued, overworked essential worker who has dropped by to deliver some food or package of sorts. Resist the urge to grab as many toilet paper rolls as your arms can carry. And sometimes, when politicians can’t even agree, let us try to be the ones who link arms in a united global effort to confront the monster that is Covid-19.
The View from Singapore 