Impact of COVID-19 on daily routine

 

Impact of COVID-19 on daily routine

                                                                                                                    by:- Shubham Swami

Mostly this pandemic has left our lives in distraught and has tipped our axes, it has come as a surprise to some of us and has changed the way we live and the things we did on a daily basis.

The lockdown has made us realize the importance of actually appreciating the things and people that we take for granted, but what it has taught us is the spirit of togetherness and giving helping others, and helping where one can.

It has come to show us that money and material things are not as important as human life and caring for each other in times of need, it has shown how much greatness can come from working together and what it can do for a nation and community just by giving a helping where it is needed and wanted.

In INDIA where I come from, during this period we have come together as a country, rich and poor, young and old, black, white, and Asian to show what a little love, care and bring hope and smiles in this time of sadness and hopelessness,

It has shown that all we need is each other to make the best out of the worst-case scenario. I know a lot of us are stressing about school and how this has affected our academic year, I think the best we could do right is just pray and be thankful that we are still able to wake up and see the sunrise and feel the air tickling our skins and being able to breathe in the wonderful air around us and appreciate what is around us which is mother nature and its beauty.

Over the past 12 months, the pandemic has harmed the poor and vulnerable the most, and it is threatening to push millions more into poverty. This year, after decades of steady progress in reducing the number of people living on less than $1.90/day, COVID-19 will usher in the first reversal in the fight against extreme poverty in a generation.

The latest analysis warns that COVID-19 has pushed an additional 88 million people into extreme poverty this year – and that figure is just a baseline.   In a worst-case scenario, the figure could be as high as 115 million. The World Bank Group forecasts that the largest share of the “new poor” will be in South Asia, with Sub-Saharan Africa close behind.  According to the latest Poverty and Shared Prosperity report, “many of the new poor are likely to be engaged in informal services, construction, and manufacturing – the sectors in which economic activity is most affected by lockdowns and other mobility restrictions.”

Those restrictions – enacted to control the spread of the virus, and thus alleviate pressure on strained and vulnerable health systems – have had an enormous impact on economic growth. The June edition of the Global Economic Prospects, put it plainly: “COVID-19 has triggered a global crisis like no other – a global health crisis that, in addition to an enormous human toll, is leading to the deepest global recession since the Second World War.” It forecast that the global economy as well as per capita incomes would shrink this year – pushing millions into extreme poverty.

This economic fallout is hampering countries’ ability to respond effectively to the pandemic’s health and economic effects. Even before the spread of COVID-19, almost half of all low-income countries were already in debt distress or at a high risk of it , leaving them with little fiscal room to help the poor and vulnerable who were hit hardest.

For this reason, in April, the World Bank and IMF called for the suspension of debt-service payments for the poorest countries to allow them to focus resources on fighting the pandemic. The Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) has enabled these countries to free-up billions of dollars for their COVID-19 response. Yet, as the graph below illustrates, debt service outlays to bilateral creditors will impose a heavy burden for years to come, and quick action to reduce debt will be needed to avoid another lost decade.

As World Bank Group President David Malpass has said, “Debt service suspension is an important stopgap, but it is not enough.” He added that “many more steps are needed on debt relief,” including an expansion of DSSI while a more permanent solution can be developed.

Without more action on debt, a sustainable recovery could be stunted in many countries – along with a host of other development goals.  As Global Economic Prospects noted, while many emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) were able to implement large-scale fiscal and monetary responses during the 2007-2008 Financial Crisis, today they are less prepared to weather a global downturn. The most vulnerable of them rely heavily on global trade, tourism, and remittances. The next edition of Global Economic Prospects, including updated forecasts, is due in early January.

Remittances – the money that migrants send to their home countries – are of special concern.  Over previous decades, remittances have played an increasingly important role in alleviating poverty and sustaining growth. Just last year, these flows were on par with foreign direct investment and official development assistance (government-to-government aid).

But COVID-19 has spurred a dramatic reversal, with our latest forecasts finding that remittances will decline 14% by the end of 2021 – a slightly improved outlook compared with the earliest estimates during the pandemic, that should not belie the fact that these are historic declines. All regions can expect a drop, with Europe and Central Asia seeing the steepest fall. Associated with these declines, the number of international migrants is likely to fall in 2020 – for the first time in modern history – as new migration has slowed and return migration has increased.

These drops are cutting off a lifeline for many poor families in developing countries. Migrants’ remittances are crucial to households around the world , and as they decline, experts fear that poverty will rise, food insecurity will worsen, and households risk losing the means to afford services like healthcare.

The pandemic slowdown has deeply impacted businesses and jobs.  Around the world, companies – especially micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the developing world – are under intense strain, with more than half either in arrears or likely to fall into arrears shortly. To understand the pressure that COVID-19 is having on firms’ performance as well as the adjustments they are having to make, the World Bank and partners have been conducting rapid COVID-19 Business Pulse Surveys in partnership with client governments.

These offer a glimmer of good news. Responses collected between May and August showed that many of these firms were retaining staff, hoping to keep them on board as they ride out the downturn. More than a third of companies have increased the use of digital technology to adapt to the crisis.  The same data warned, however, that the firms’ sales have dropped by half amid the crisis, forcing companies to reduce hours and wages, and most businesses – especially micro and small firms in low-income countries – are struggling to access public support.

Reduced family incomes – whether due to job loss, a stop in remittance payments, or a multitude of other COVID-19-related factors – will continue to put human capital at risk. With less money, families will be forced to make trade-offs and sacrifices that could harm health and learning outcomes for a generation.  

The pandemic has highlighted the need for effective, accessible and affordable health care.  Even before the crisis began, people in developing countries paid over half-a-trillion dollars out-of-pocket for health care. This costly spending causes financial hardship for more than 900 million people and pushes nearly 90 million people into extreme poverty every year – a dynamic almost certainly exacerbated by the pandemic.

And health care is just one way that COVID-19 is affecting countries’ human capital. Even before the pandemic, the world faced a learning crisis, with 53% of children in low- and middle-income countries unable to read a basic text on completing primary school. Pandemic-led school closures intensify these risks.

At the height of the COVID lockdown, more than 160 countries had mandated some form of school closures for at least 1.5 billion children and youth.  Regular updates on global closures can be found here.

COVID-19’s effects on education could be felt for decades to come , not just causing a loss of learning in the short term, but also diminishing economic opportunities for this generation of students over the long term. Due to learning losses and increases in dropout rates, this generation of students stand to lose an estimated $10 trillion in earnings, or almost 10 percent of global GDP, and countries will be driven even further off-track to achieving their Learning Poverty goals – potentially increasing its levels substantially to 63 percent, equivalent to an additional 72 million primary school aged children.

As economic conditions force families to make difficult decisions on household spending, concerns about student dropout rates have grown.  Speaking on our Expert Answers video series, World Bank Global Director for Education Jaime Saavedra said he is particularly worried for students in secondary school and tertiary education. Many in those demographics “will not come back to the system because this is going to be a huge economic shock, so families might not have resources or some [students] will have to resort to work,” he explained. Others who were previously on the brink of dropping out will be more likely to do so due to the pandemic, Saavedra said.

To mitigate these losses and try to sustain learning amid the crisis, countries are exploring options for remote learning – with mixed results. In many places, a key obstacle is a lack of high-quality, affordable broadband.

On the Development Podcast, we spoke to two Colombian mothers who live on opposite sides of the digital divide. We heard about their radically different experience of home-based education.