HIGHLIGHTS

Doctors and nurses at hospitals were not the only people heroically keeping the worst of the pandemic at bay. Other essential workers, including those working in long-term care homes, scientists and pharmacologists striving to come up with a vaccine or medicine to treat the deadly disease, police and security officials enforcing the rules of lockdown, public sanitation workers as well as employees of the food retail industry had to make sure our most basic needs continued to be met amid the widespread slowdowns and new restrictions.

Most of us will remember the Covid-19 outbreak and crisis as a period of forced confinement, restricted movement, and fewer of the leisure activities that we used to take for granted. But for those on the front lines of the pandemic, especially health workers, this period will be remembered as one of a desperate fight to keep thousands of people alive. As infection rates exploded and the virus spread like a wildfire even after lockdowns were imposed and most of the population was confined to their homes, doctors, and nurses at hospitals and ICUs were working around the clock to save lives. The ghostly silence of the streets, devoid of the usual traffic, was interrupted only by the sounds of ambulance sirens rushing patients to clinics for emergency treatment. In the worst-affected countries, where entire populations were forced to stay at home, supporting the frontline workers with daily, nationwide applause and tributes became a rallying cry for nations facing the most severe health crisis in living memory. Countries were forced to band together to face the invisible enemy. But unlike in war, our heroes in this battle were not soldiers; the heroes of the hour were doctors, nurses, and carers in homes for the elderly.

The pandemic has drastically changed how we lead our daily lives, down to the finest details. Things we all took for granted only a few months ago, such as meeting with friends for a drink after work, seeing your favorite actor in the latest blockbuster film, cheering on your favorite sports team, or even going to get a haircut, were all suddenly dangerous. Worse still, we could not hug or even get close to our loved ones, with social distancing being touted by authorities as one of the most effective ways of stopping the virus from spreading. This was especially tough for the elderly, who were confined to their homes or residences with no relatives or friends allowed to visit them.

As the first peak of the pandemic passed and governments began looking at how to return to something approaching “normality”, social distancing in public places has become ubiquitous – restaurants and bars have come up with bizarre but ingenious ways to keep customers at a safe distance from each other, supermarkets are forced to stagger the number of shoppers, leading to long lines of people down the streets, standing at least a meter apart, and spots on benches in parks and transport hubs have been taped off.   

The COVID-19 pandemic which has taken over the planet began with a small cluster of cases of what was first thought to be pneumonia in Wuhan in December 2019. By early January, a new form of coronavirus was known to be the cause. But by then, the virus had spread around the city and beyond, and officials had a major outbreak of a mysterious, deadly disease on their hands. Authorities scrambled to contain the outbreak, cordoning off and locking down Wuhan, the first COVID-19 hotspot. The world looked on in horror, hoping the disease would not spread further. By late February, the worst fears were confirmed as northern Italy, the country’s economic powerhouse, became the next hotspot, and on 08 March Italian authorities imposed a Wuhan-style lockdown of its own, affecting over 16 million people. The rest of the country would also shut down within days as the deadly extent of outbreak became painfully clear. The disease had arrived in Europe. Within a matter of days, the virus had spread and exploded in Spain, Europe’s second hotspot. Spanish authorities were forced to impose the same kinds of restrictions as Italy on its own clusters in Madrid and Barcelona, where the cases and deaths were rapidly multiplying and pushing hospitals and care homes to breaking point. By the start of April, the virus had started to surge in the USA, and soon the country would become a new Covid-19 epicenter and would report by far the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world.