The aftermath of COVID-19: 4 years onward

The year was 2020 when the world was thrown into chaos. Borders shut down, intra and international travel came to an agitated standstill and corporations of every size seized on-site operations. Education, tourism, entertainment, finance, technology, some of the cornerstone industries defining civilization began to quiver and crumble and the economy of many nations took a deep dive. Uncertainty marinated in the increasingly desolate streets and it would be almost 3 years later following the declassification of COVID-19 as a public health emergency of international concern(PHEIC) that the terror would lift and a wary kind of normalcy would slowly begin to seep into world again.

But the impact of this pandemic continues to linger past its existence and 4 years later, we continue to witness the convoluted fallout from this time in our existence. Perhaps the most jarring of these would be the long term health complications; neurological, cardiovascular, respiratory and even psychological, that have come to be associated with it. In stride, a lot of recently published articles from public policy control centres have highlighted the potential of a mass incidence of unexplainable adverse effects in the population in the coming years with a lot of these articles underlining the experimental nature of the implemented vaccines and the lack of protocol and standardised phase I, II and III clinical trials prior to market introduction.

Initial shock waves following the designation of COVID-19 as a pandemic fueled significant changes in labor supply, productivity by sector, consumption patterns, country and sector risk premia as well as government expenditure in a way that caused an initial 3.4% plummet in the world's collective gross domestic product (GDP) with the travel and tourism industry being the most heavily impacted. Financial forums like the World Bank and IMF now paint a picture of a gloomy struggle toward pre-pandemic global economic levels.

Another lingering impact of the pandemic is the revolution in the workplace and education systems that it has ushered in. This decade has perhaps witnessed the greatest introduction and implementation of virtual/remote processes and curriculums in a way that has drastically defined and refined the work environment and learning.

Hand in hand with all these consequences and ramifications is a slew of questions and an uprising of debates surrounding the social and political implication of concepts associated with this pandemic and phenomena that have followed in its wake. Primary and perhaps the most visited among these are the debate of government mandate versus personal freedom in relation to the compulsory mask and vaccination laws that had been instituted at that time in response to dire public health concerns, global cooperation versus nationalism during crisis as well as questions surrounding inequality and access to health care, job security, and the culture of cultivating the habit of both government/individual preparedness in the event of future global challenges.