Social and Economic Impact of COVID-19

Social Impact: More than half of the world's population lived in Covid-19 induced lockdown until recently, which highly disrupted lives and livelihoods throughout societies. In particular women, people with disabilities, the poor, ethnic minorities and the disadvantaged section of the society, mostly in the developing world, have been adversely affected. Income inequality, deprivation, discrimination on the basis of colour, creed, ethnicity, social status, etc. have worsened the situation. The pandemic outbreak has provoked social stigma and discriminatory behaviour against people of certain ethnic or also social backgrounds. Anyone perceived to have been in contact with people affected by the virus has been discriminated against in certain cases.

Covid-19 patients in many cases have been neglected by caregivers, family, friends and the community. Stigma has undermined social cohesion and prompted social isolation of patients. Bodies of people who died from Covid-19 were found to have been abandoned in forests or on the streets in certain places of Bangladesh. Communities in a few areas even refused burial of such bodies. After being identified as a corona patient, a number of aged men/women could not even enter their own houses or get any treatment anywhere. And Covid-19 patients, their family members and frontline workers like medical professionals and law enforcers have been harassed in many places.

Economic Impact: The rich-poor gap has increased significantly in Bangladesh in recent years. The massive GDP growth has not been accompanied with increased equality. The Gini coefficient has increased from 0.388 in 1992 to 0.482 in 2016, meaning that inequality has increased. GDP growth without proper job creation has resulted in slow progress in poverty reduction. Existing inequality of access to healthcare for the poor has aggravated during the pandemic. Economic recovery packages like bailouts, incentives, loan rescheduling, subsidies, etc. are benefiting mainly the rich businesses. Our average household consumption fell from 1.8 percent in 2010 to 1.4 percent in 2016. Low- income communities are more likely to be exposed to the corona virus and will be more affected due to long-standing segregation, high-cost of medicine, etc. Higher mortality rate has been observed among marginal groups in the US-21 percent of black Americans and 18 percent of Hispanic people live below the poverty line, compared to 8 percent of white Americans. Low income is associated with diabetes, heart-disease, etc. which makes on more vulnerable to Covid-19. The US Gini coefficient was 0.59 in 2016 which represents high inequality. Implicit racism and discrimination through attitudes, process, behaviour, prejudice, ignorance and thoughtlessness have been reported in the UK also, 8.5 million non-whites in Britain face disparity in education, employment, medical treatment, etc. Proportion of corona virus infection is disproportionately higher (34 percent) among the UK's ethnic minority population (14 percent).