BY KIRAN MAHNAZ
From the start of 2020, there had been a lot of economic losses due to the Covid-19 Pandemic and climatic changes.
Globally restrictions were imposed for individual and public movement since March 2020. Slowly and gradually every government noticed that lockdown was the sensible solution to combat Covid-19 until the vaccine would be introduced.
There was a new concept introduced “work from home” to continue with the businesses but it turned out that the majority of the SMEs & corporate businesses in retail, entertainment, tourism, hoteling, transportation, aviation, oil and gas sectors started incurring major losses and millions of workers were laid off from every industry.
Until September 2020, every advanced economy was suffering from worse global recession. The authorities were depending on the health care sector and pharmaceutical industry to introduce the vaccine at their earliest to control the situation. The global recession period of 2020 was compared with the Great depression period in 1929-1930s. Millions of small medium businesses were permanently wiped out globally
During this depressive period, there have been many conspiracy theories making rounds regarding the origin of coronavirus and elites controlling the world through fear and fake pandemics.
The civilians in Western world specially started debating that governments are exercising totalitarianism by silencing the critics and strengthening their power over the general public.
All social media channels were flooded with conspiracy theories and some conspiracy facts shared by the general public and on the other hand the mainstream media was flooded with the information giving the narrative of governmental authorities or global agencies.
It was a kind of information war between governmental authorities and the general public narrative. In this situation governments started censoring the news that was causing depression and anxiety among people, who were in lockdown and living without incomes.
That control sparked the debate that governments are practicing totalitarian in Western countries. International human rights law permits the states to restrict the individual freedom rights in emergency situations. Although, these restrictions on freedom should be taken under the necessity of protection and should be proportionate and non-discriminate.
As per the survey in Pakistan, majority of Pakistanis did not believe that coronavirus exists and they did not follow the SOPs during pandemic situation. According to the survey majority of them believed that patients of other diseases are tagged under coronavirus in hospital records to make more revenue for the health sector.
One of the accepted stories was that coronavirus was created in the laboratory as a bioweapon by Americans. Pakistan has 63% of the young population and these youngsters have a good immune system to fight against the virus and the majority of the patients recover without medical assistance.
Still the Pakistani public grievances against the government authority have been increased due to the financial crunch, depressive lockdown period and increase of government’s authority over public liberty as Covid security measures. Global data shows that millions doses of vaccines have been administered. On the contrary, there is a huge number of the general public, who are against taking vaccines and in my opinion, they have the right to avoid taking vaccine.
In Australia there have been protests against the roll out of vaccines in February 2021, while it is not mandatory to take vaccine for everyone. These superstitious people do not want the roll out of vaccine and want to spread the word to halt the vaccine roll out. The contradictory information circulating in the media regarding the severe side effects of vaccine has created a hesitant group in every country.
These people comprise of huge number and their confidence is shattered regarding the vaccine safety and efficiency. They are waiting for family members and friends opinion, who have already taken the vaccines and I consider myself one of them. Even though the Coronavirus vaccine has been rolled out for everyone in UAE, I am hesitant to take the vaccine for at least next six months to one year.
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