COVID-19: Lessons Learned & The Way Forward – The European Sting – Critical News & Insights on European Politics, Economy, Foreign Affairs, Business & Technology – europeansting.com – The European Sting

This article was exclusively written for The European Sting by Mr. Abdelrahman Omer, also known as Abdelo, a 21 years old medical student from Sudan. He is affiliated with the International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA), cordial partner of The Sting. The opinions expressed in this piece belong strictly to the writers and do not necessarily reflect IFMSA’s view on the topic, nor The European Sting’s one.

Quick Recap

It has been almost three years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic  back in 2020. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Globally, as of 4:54 pm CET, 20 December 2022, there have been 649,753,806 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 6,648,457 deaths [1]

The abovementioned numbers constitute the human-cost of the pandemic, while it is deeply horrifying and scary, however, the socio-economic impacts were far worse and adverse. Hundreds, if not thousands of people lost their jobs, especially the most vulnerable groups of people living in Low & Middle Income Countries. According to the World Bank; The COVID-19 recession has seen the fastest, steepest downgrades in consensus growth projections among all global recessions since 1990 [2] 

The Impact

The impact of COVID-19 is by far the worst pandemic-related impact since decades. It led to a huge loss of human life worldwide and possesed an unprecedented challenge to Health Systems worldwide. 

The economic and social disruption caused by the pandemic is devastating. According to the WHO; tens of millions of people are at risk of falling into extreme poverty, while the number of undernourished people, currently estimated at nearly 690 million, could increase by up to 132 million by the end of the year. [3]

This was of course accompanied with soaring levels of domestic violence against women and children, prevelance of mental diseases, and a lot of other adverse impacts.

The Way Forward

As we are heading towards another wave of the pandemic, but this time, more prepared, we must not repeat the same mistakes we did/kept doing for the last three years. Spreading awareness, especially among vulnerable people, and those who don’t have access to the internet, is a must in order to guarantee a safer implementation of health measures by the relevant bodies.

We must also pressure the international community to provide vaccines for Low & Middle Income Countries, including but not limited to; technical, logistical, and financial assistance.

This pandemic is not over yet. We mustn’t deal with it as if it is. 

Sources: 

1- WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard | WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard With Vaccination Data

2- 2020 Year in Review: The impact of COVID-19 in 12 charts (worldbank.org)3- Impact of COVID-19 on people’s livelihoods, their health and our food systems (who.int)

3- Impact of COVID-19 on people’s livelihoods, their health and our food systems (who.int)

About the author

Abdelrahman Omer, also known as Abdelo, is a 21 years old medical student from Sudan. Abdelrahman goes to Ibn Sina University, in Khartoum, Sudan. He takes an active role in his IFMSA NMO (National Member Organization), MedSIN-Sudan.Abdelrahman currently serves as his Local Committee (Ibn Sina Medical Students’ Association) President for the term 2022-2023. He is very passionate when it comes to politics, social, and economical topics, as he find himself indulged in discussing these matters whenever given the chance to.

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