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The COVID-19 Pandemic: A Global Catastrophe

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The COVID-19 Pandemic: A Global Catastrophe

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It was December of 2019, and news started to filter in of an infectious outbreak in Wuhan, China. At that time, this event was just a footnote in most news bulletins.

However, in the coming months, the world would experience what could probably be termed the most significant global catastrophe since World War 2.

Interestingly, it was not nations fighting against each other, unlike the world wars. Instead, it was a virus. But was the virus the only enemy?

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COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. The World Health Organization (WHO) first learned of this new virus on 31 December 2019, following a report of a cluster of cases of so-called viral pneumonia in Wuhan, People’s Republic of China.

The most common symptoms of COVID-19 are fever, chills and sore throat (Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19), n.d.).

A pandemic is a highly prevalent and widespread outbreak of a contagious disease that rapidly spreads and affects a significant portion of the global population over several months (Pandemic | Description, History, Preparedness, & Facts | Britannica, n.d.).

A high-level description of a pandemic would be an infectious outbreak (system) that spreads rapidly and infects humans.

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The illustration in Figure 1 depicts the typical cycle of events during the pandemic.

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Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO Director-General, cautioned that the COVID-19 pandemic would affect all sectors, and countries should find a balance between health, economy, and human rights. As forewarned, the health crisis became a global economic and social crisis that inflicted unprecedented damage on the world of work and, for millions,  spilled over into a humanitarian catastrophe (Work in the Time of COVID, n.d.).

In terms of “systems thinking,” I will now reflect on the COVID-19 pandemic and how this event demonstrated key concepts that make systems (Tools for Systems Thinkers: The 6 Fundamental Concepts of Systems Thinking | by Leyla Acaroglu | Disruptive Design | Medium, n.d.).

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•        Interconnectedness:

It is apparent from the pandemic that various systems, sub-systems and sectors are interconnected. Health Care may not typically trump the Economy during an election debate. However, the pandemic showed no industry is more critical. Everything has its place in the “Circle of Life.”

Anything happening elsewhere has a boomerang effect with time. The only difference may be the magnitude of the impact caused by such an event.

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•        Feedback Loops:

The lockdowns and quarantine measures limited in-person work. However, that led to a rise in remote jobs as a balancing feedback loop. Videotelephony and online chat services such as Zoom also experienced exponential growth.

Sadly, a reinforcing feedback loop was the contagious spread of the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID) virus, which led to the explosion of the virus among humans.

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•       Emergence:

The simultaneous events in various sectors (systems) during the pandemic triggered paranoia not experienced in recent times. Even with multiple news outlets, social media, etc., reliable news was seemingly scarce. Conspiracy theories were plentiful.

Measures such as social distancing took a toll on the public’s mental health, and rebellion set in, which made the pandemic challenging to control. Simple actions, such as wearing a face mask, became issues of national debate. And do not get me started about the suspicions about taking COVID vaccines.

While the SARS-CoV-2 virus spread, it evolved into various variants, such as Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron, through mutation (SARS-CoV-2 Variant Classifications and Definitions, n.d.).

Nonetheless, there were a few good things that emerged from the event. People had more time to themselves to reflect on how fickle life can be and on what really matters to them.

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Figure 2 is a "Mental Modeler" model illustrating the possible interactions and relationships between different sectors (systems) during the pandemic.

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Figure 3 highlights vital information learned from the model in Figure 2.

There are six (6) components in the model, while there are thirteen (13) connections in total.

The SARS-CoV-2 (COVID) virus is the "driver" component because it has arrows going out of it and is not (directly) affected by any other component.

The "HealthCare Systems" component is the "receiver" component because it has arrows from other components going into it. Health Care Systems worldwide mainly were at the receiving end of most components' failures (lack of success).

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From Figure 3, the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID) virus component has the highest centrality. This primary catalyst started the chain of events during the pandemic.

The following central component is the “Economic Systems” component. That makes sense because commerce is central to our lives. Through economic activities, we survive by exchanging goods or services for remuneration.

Non-pharmaceutical measures such as national lockdowns, quarantine regulations, testing and tracing, and border closures severely affected global economies (“The End of COVID-19-Related Travel Restrictions – Summary of Findings from the COVID-19-Related Travel Restrictions Reports,” 2023).

Unsurprisingly, “Transport Systems” is the next central component in Figure 3. That is because travel was restricted to slow down the spread of the pandemic.

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Figure 2 shows that most of the interactions between components were overwhelmingly negative (Red arrows) in their impact or, at best, neutral (Black arrows). The only positive interaction (Blue arrow) was the effect of the "SARS Cov-2 (COVID) virus" component on "The Media and Misinformation" component.

With the public isolated in their homes during the pandemic, access to information was vital. Media consumption increased during the COVID-19 lockdown. Specifically, social media and television usage increased (Kim et al., 2021).

However, trust in the media was severely compromised during the pandemic.

Misinformation on social media during the pandemic was as harmful as the virus itself (Social Media & COVID-19: A Global Study of Digital Crisis Interaction among Gen Z and Millennials, n.d.).

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I firmly believe that open access to trustworthy and non-political information could have slowed down the pandemic.

There were instances of wrong treatments as a cure for COVID-19. False information on various media, including social media, was extremely dangerous during the pandemic. In Phoenix, US, someone died from consuming chloroquine, which was used to clean fish tanks. Misinformation linked to religious beliefs was also rampant (Barua et al., 2020).

The rise of misinformation happened because there was no consistent and reliable information for the public to trust. Some countries defied the World Health Organization and would not cooperate with them. That mistrust and many others like that worsened the health crisis.

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I have collated a list of interventions based on the “US Surgeon General’s Advisory on Building a Healthy Information Environment” (Murthy,n.d.).

• Educational institutions should inform the public about tactics used by online misinformation spreaders. Media, science, digital, data, and health literacy programs should be implemented across all educational settings.

• Health professionals can develop personalized public health messages to fight misinformation by working with community groups and local organizations. Clinicians should receive training from health organizations on addressing misinformation that considers patients’ diverse needs and experiences.

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• Journalists and the media should proactively address the public’s questions. People will understandably have questions about something new—such as a vaccine. Media organizations and journalists can avoid misinformation and improve public health and information literacy by proactively addressing such questions.

• The media should always provide the public with context to avoid skewing their perceptions about ongoing debates on health topics. If evidence is not equally strong on all sides of an issue, avoid presenting it. Give viewers/ readers a sense of where the scientific community stands and how strong the evidence is for different views.

• The media should consider headlines and images that inform rather than shock or provoke. Images are often shared on social media alongside headlines and can be easily manipulated and used out of context. Editors should be mindful of the potential for misinformation when using provocative and medically inaccurate images.

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• Tech platforms need to assess the advantages and disadvantages of their products and be accountable for addressing any negative impacts by making meaningful long-term investments to address misinformation, including product changes. Recommendation algorithms should be upgraded to prevent misinformation, discourage false information sharing, and simplify user reporting.

• Technology platforms should also prioritize early detection of misinformation “super-spreaders” and repeat offenders. Impose clear consequences for accounts that repeatedly violate platform policies.

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• Governments should continue to modernize public health communications by:

❖ Deploying new messaging and community engagement strategies, including partnerships with trusted messengers,

❖ Proactively and rapidly releasing accurate, easy-to understand health information in online and in-person settings,

❖ Investing in fact-checking and rumour control mechanisms.

• Share posters like Figure 1 that alert the public to the dangers of misinformation.

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Evaluation Framework to Tackle Misinformation and Disinformation: Indicators to Measure Progress

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Evaluation Framework to Tackle Misinformation and Disinformation: Indicators to Measure Progress

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The following guidelines could be used to measure the impact and progress of the proposed interventions:

• Tech companies should allocate 5% of their budgets to improving algorithms and hiring human fact-checkers to provide additional context to aid AI-generated fact-checking.

• Censorship of the media is never an excellent strategy. However, the mass media should have adequate and apolitical regulation to maintain best practices. There should be a clear-cut line between the drive to increase viewership/ readership and spreading false information.

• Review the number of subscribers to regular localized public health messages.

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• Regulating the media might be considered censorship, which goes against freedom of speech in many countries.

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The pandemic had medical, social, political and economic ramifications. The event highlighted how interconnected various sectors (systems) are and how we should be vigilant in protecting free speech and verifying the trustworthiness of the information we consume.

A seed of misinformation can potentially infect any system—the pandemic revealed several fault lines in our systems. If we can be more objective and united as a society, we may be better prepared to fight the next global crisis, whatever form it may take.

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Barua, Z., Barua, S., Aktar, S., Kabir, N., & Li, M. (2020). Effects of misinformation on COVID-19 individual responses and recommendations for resilience of disastrous consequences of misinformation. Progress in Disaster Science, 8, 100119. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.PDISAS.2020.100119

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19). (n.d.). Retrieved November 6, 2023, from https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/question-and-answers-hub/q-a-detail/coronavirus-disease-covid-19

Kim, J., Merrill, K. B., Collins, C., & Yang, H. (2021). Social TV viewing during the COVID-19 lockdown: The mediating role of social presence. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2021.101733

Murthy, V. H. (n.d.). Confronting Health Misinformation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on Building a Healthy Information Environment.

Pandemic | Description, History, Preparedness, & Facts | Britannica. (n.d.). Retrieved November 7, 2023, from https://www.britannica.com/science/pandemic

SARS-CoV-2 Variant Classifications and Definitions. (n.d.). Retrieved November 10, 2023, from https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/variant-classifications.html

Social media & COVID-19: A global study of digital crisis interaction among Gen Z and Millennials. (n.d.). Retrieved November 7, 2023, from https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/social-media-covid-19-a-global-study-of-digital-crisis-interaction-among-gen-z-and-millennials

The End of COVID-19-related Travel Restrictions – Summary of findings from the COVID-19-related Travel Restrictions reports. (2023). In The End of COVID-19-related Travel Restrictions – Summary of findings from the COVID-19-related Travel Restrictions reports. World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). https://doi.org/10.18111/9789284424320

Tools for Systems Thinkers: The 6 Fundamental Concepts of Systems Thinking | by Leyla Acaroglu | Disruptive Design | Medium. (n.d.). Retrieved November 10, 2023, from https://medium.com/disruptive-design/tools-for-systems-thinkers-the-6-fundamental-concepts-of-systems-thinking-379cdac3dc6a

Work in the time of COVID. (n.d.). Retrieved November 9, 2023, from www.ilo.org/publns