Op-Ed: COVID-19 Versus the World, the Whole World

Article By Anton Holm

I will be graduating from California State University, Chico this spring and will be headed to Germany and Sweden respectively to earn two Masters of Science Degrees in fields related to international governing.

Here are my thoughts on the COVID-19 pandemic:

These times are some of the most challenging in recent memory. The COVID-19 pandemic has dominated news headlines and stirred up a worldwide frenzy since the beginning of 2020. It may seem like the world is ending, but I assure you that it won’t. This pandemic will certainly leave a mark on human history, but it will be just that. A mark, a blemish. Not an end. COVID-19 will continue to bring pain and suffering, but the ferocity of these aches will largely be determined by us. By how well we can follow the best practices set forth by medical professionals and the extent to which we protect those most vulnerable. 

In the United States, there has been a significant amount of debate regarding the effectiveness of the nation’s response to the pandemic. Criticism has arisen in response to the late recognition of COVID-19 as a genuine threat to the American public, but recently our country has been taking significant action. The federal government recently announced that they will pay General Motors $489.4 million to produce 30,000 ventilators for the national stockpile. FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers have been granted over a billion dollars to convert hotels, college dorms, and arenas into facilities that can be used to treat COVID-19 patients. All of this is of course overshadowed by the massive $2 trillion stimulus package passed by the Senate in March. Across the nation, we are truly in an all-out war against the pandemic. However, despite the reallocation of trillions of dollars and shelter-in-place orders, the United States has the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world; more than three times as many as second-place Spain. 

If the wealthiest and most powerful country on earth is struggling so hard to contain COVID-19, how will the disadvantaged communities of the developing world fare? Not well. 52 of the 54 African countries have now confirmed cases of COVID-19. The United State’s GDP is about 7.5 times more than that of the entire African continent combined. Simply put, African countries don’t have the resources to fight this pandemic. They have no General Motors, FEMA, Army Corps of Engineers, and no stimulus package. The general lack of government capacity in underdeveloped regions of the world means that individuals can’t rely on their country’s authorities and institutions for protection. 

I have heard from a partner in Malawi that their government has failed to introduce isolation or social distancing measures on public transport and that disinfectants and sanitizers remain inaccessible for the majority of households. The inability to enact the most basic disease prevention measures makes for a very gloomy future as Africa’s population is especially vulnerable to COVID-19. Disproportionately high rates of underlying health conditions such as HIV and Tuberculosis plague the continent. When this is considered in conjunction with Africa’s high rate of malnutrition, a rather drastic image is created. COVID-19 is just beginning to expand across the African continent but it will inevitably wreak havoc on its population. 

Africa isn’t by any means the only underdeveloped continent that will have to fight an uphill battle against COVID-19; all impoverished regions of the world will face precarious situations. In many developing countries, there has been speculation that low testing numbers are what is responsible for the relatively low number of confirmed cases. The Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases has estimated that just 2% of Indonesia’s COVID-19 cases have been confirmed at a figure of nearly 5,000. This represents a potential 250,000 current cases in a country that has just 321,544 hospital beds and is far from reaching its COVID-19 peak. All across the global south health care systems are failing and people are being left to fend for themselves, oftentimes without the proper information or resources to do so. 

So how do we stop this from happening? While government agencies are tied up with coordinating domestic responses to the pandemic, there exists a huge network of cost-efficient organizations available for this fight: the NGO community. NGOs, or non-governmental organizations, are private nonprofits that carry out humanitarian work in a variety of sectors. I have had the pleasure of working for an NGO by the name of illuminAid. For more than a decade, illuminAid has trained individuals in the developing world to use video to create positive social and behavioral change. The organization travels to disadvantaged communities across the developing world and trains the staff of NGOs from the host country how to create, edit, and disseminate video. The topic of these videos varies by project, but are always related to improving the lives of the local population. Whether this is by introducing new agricultural techniques, nutritional information or disease prevention measures, illuminAid empowers locals to make a difference in their own communities.

Ultimately, the way we must help the developing world fight the spread of COVID-19 is by supporting the efforts of NGOs like illuminAid. NGOs are experts in their respective fields and represent the most cost-effective method of providing humanitarian support to the regions that need it most. They also utilize something that is at the core of the American mantra; efficiency via privatization. As private organizations, NGOs operate in the sectors most needed and only survive if they are effective and efficient. I urge each and every one of you to consider supporting NGOs, like illuminAid, so that the lives of millions in the developing world may be spared. In times when everyone is worried about their own safety, it can be hard to show compassion towards others. But for the good of the human race, we must do so.

Again, the world is not ending. We will not be the stars of an apocalyptic movie by 2021. The world’s condition will improve but scars will be left behind. The degree of this scarring depends on how well we can follow the best practices set forth by the medical community and help our fellow man. Our nation is throwing everything we have at this pandemic and rightly so. However, the vast majority of the world’s 7 billion people aren’t fortunate enough to live in a country as developed and wealthy as ours. Economies will recuperate but we will never be able to recover those who we lose to this deadly virus. Please follow the advice of those who have devoted their lives to the medical field and please consider donating to NGOs dedicated to helping stop the spread of COVID-19 in the developing world. In these discouraging times, it is necessary to remain vigilant and do what you can to protect as many as you can.