THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND ITS IMPACT ON HUMAN BEINGS

At the end of the year 2019, a novel virus named Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV 2 or COVID-19) first appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan, at the east-central Hubei province. The virus spread at such a pace across the globe, that the WHO declared the novel coronavirus disease as a global pandemic on March, 11th 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in over 18 million confirmed cases and over 689,000 deaths globally. Besides the morbidity and mortality, this pandemic has wreaked havoc and has affected humans in all aspects of life from a schoolchild to a healthcare worker, from a small vendor at the road to big franchises, from health services to non-health services, transportation from the daily commute to domestic and international air travel, from developing economies to developed economies, from disruption of small cultural, individual festivities to large scale lockdown across the regions. In fact, this pandemic has left no aspect of our lives unaffected. Even so, our mental and physical health has worsened as well, due to the disruption of preventative and treatment service amid the Covid-19 pandemic, resulting in a poor quality of life. Many patients who are being treated for chronic medical illnesses like cancer, coronary artery diseases, hypertension, diabetes, and mental health problems have not been receiving the proper care and medicines they need since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The education system is facing a big challenge amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This will take years, if not months, for us to heal the wounds caused by the Coronavirus pandemic