There is something about the Covid-19 pandemic, which has probably never been seen in the history of humanity. Usually, whenever there is a disease outbreak, the poorer nations are the ones that suffer extensively. However, Covid-19 seems to be uniform, crossing all borders around the world and infecting anyone that is exposed to it.
We have all been affected in one way or another, with most of us spending time at home concentrating on hobbies or playing darmowa ruletka europejska online games with nowhere to go. If anything, the pandemic has relatively affected rich nations more than the less developed countries have. However, if the matter is looked at closely, you will notice that the vulnerable people in society are the ones who are affected the most by disease outbreaks.
Who Tends to Suffer the Most During Disease Outbreaks?
The poorest sections of any nation suffer the most whenever there is a disease outbreak. This is all due to a few factors associated with poverty. For starters, they live in overcrowded neighbourhoods, where the likelihood of the disease or virus spreading is extremely high. The situation is even worse in low-income societies, which might lack access to basic services such as clean running water.
For example, when it comes to Covid-19, personal hygiene and washing of hands are necessary. We have to sanitise our hands often whenever we are out of the house or have been exposed to anyone or contaminated objects. However, those living in communities with a limited supply of water will find personal hygiene as a luxury they cannot afford. Even worse, not everyone can afford a small bottle of sanitiser; hence, the vulnerable tend to overlook such measures.
Secondly, those living on a hand-to-mouth wage have to work no matter the situation to bring food to their families. In an outbreak like Covid-19, we have seen many countries putting their people under lockdown. Also, there have been tons of curfews set in place.
However, some nations cannot afford to put their whole country under lockdown like we have seen other countries doing so. Those with low income tend to break some of those measures like curfews to go to work. These people only earn a small wage, which they tend to spend on daily basic needs as food. Therefore, they may not have any savings to help them survive during lockdowns. So they will most likely put themselves in harm’s way since they do not have any other option.
Even if they had salaried jobs, they still could end up unemployed during disease outbreaks due to low education levels and skills. For example, in the United States, more than 16% of employed people lost their jobs in 2020 due to the pandemic. But most of them were the less educated. However, most of them were given unemployment benefits, which helped them bounce back. Unfortunately, the situation is extremely worse in developing countries that do not have a strong social security system they can rely on.
The inequalities do not end there. When the vaccines came out, rich nations were able to secure larger advanced vaccine doses. On the other hand, the less developed nations are taking orders in portions. This is not only seen in the Covid-19 pandemic but was also a similar scenario in the 2009 swine flu epidemic.
To Conclude
In short, social and economic inequalities are not a new thing in the Covid-19 pandemic. But the issue is that disease outbreaks like the ongoing pandemic are worsening the inequities, especially among the poor in the community. Governments should take notice of these developments and decide on how to weigh different measures. Because, even though prevention is better than cure, the cure might inflame an entirely different issue.
