Covid-19 - The Great Disruptor

It took a tiny virus to bring the world to a grinding halt, changing life as we knew it. Covid-19 single-handedly turned 2020 into a year that never was

- Raj Chengappa

Before the year came upon us, 2020 had a positive ring to it. The final year of the second decade of this century symbolised a vision of the future, one of soaring aspirations. Now, we will remember it not just as the year of fear, which it served up in plenty, but also one of great disruptions. In terms of the upheavals it has caused, Covid-19 is on a par with transformative catastrophes such as the Second World War and, more recently, 9/11. A turning point would be too mild to describe what the pandemic did to us in 2020. For behind us is a past we can never return to. The virus has, without doubt, changed forever the world as we knew it. We all walk around like masked bandits, and think nothing of it anymore. 2020 is, in fact, the dawn of the Covid-19 era.

Many would argue that with a vaccine on the way, the threat from the virus is bound to recede, that Covid is no era, just a brief but rude interregnum before order and sanity are restored. But ask Dr Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist of the World Health Organization (WHO), and she will tell you bluntly, “It is not going away in 2021—that is very clear. We don’t even know whether we can ultimately eradicate this virus.” Worse, she believes, another pandemic like the Covid-19 one striking humanity “is a very real possibility”. Covid-19’s transmission being zoonotic (animal to human), many scientists like her believe that humankind’s unbridled exploitation of Nature in recent decades may have opened the floodgates for many more such dangerous viruses to play havoc with our lives.