COVID-19: The Threat and Impact Vectors

At the time of writing this article, the novel Coronavirus (code name COVID-19) claimed 203,307 human lives and left 2,923,125 affected with the virus among which 837,323 recovered, around the globe [1]. Although every sector of our life is badly affected by the COVID-19, the long-lasting effects of this pandemic will set new priorities for the nations' policy-makers. At this point, the contours of the pandemic are opaque but it is anticipated that it will take an unprecedented amount of time, effort, resources, compromises, trade-offs, and policies to set the path to the next normal. Among other walks of life, the world economy took a huge hit due to lockdowns imposed by the international communities. COVID-19 has badly affected our daily lives, shaken the healthcare systems, and above all, paralyzed the norms of work ethics due to both ‘work from home’ and ‘no work’. The way we are struggling to work remotely to keep our jobs, remote schooling, managing our personal and social lives, COVID-19 is no longer just a health or a well-being threat. It has a far bigger threat vector than we currently anticipate. Also, thanks to our globalized society and interdependent economy, this pandemic has no political, geographic and religious boundaries, and has caused a regional and global crisis (public health included). In this vein, this article is a minute attempt to shed light on the threat vector of the COVID-19 pandemic.