Realizing Global Interconnectedness: A Journey From Ignorance to Awareness - Essay Sample

Introduction

I must have underestimated the extent of the global interconnectedness before I started this course. Even before the COVID-19 Pandemic, which has claimed over 150,000 lives by April 17 2020 (Worldometers, 2020), I was already getting the feel of the way the world and various phenomena interact. This course made me realize that we live in a world that one person's action at one corner of the globe can put at risk the world as a whole. It has made me realize how it feels to be helpless as a person, community, country, or even globally.

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The course offered discussions on issues of climate change and environmental justice. I was able to interact with modern-day environmental pollutions and real effects on innocent people who face the wrath of the contaminations. North Carolina has had a fair share of issues, including extreme flooding, heat waves, water pollution, and energy cartels. The issues often move from health and environmental issues to political and scientific contestations. It becomes a case of business and enterprise wellbeing against a vulnerable population-against real lives at stake. It is because of this backdrop that I will choose to focus on one issue in this reflection-the global COVID-19 Pandemic.

In December 2019, a doctor in Wuhan City in china discovered a flu-like virus affecting people within the hospital where he was stationed (Lu, Stratton & Tang, 2020). He tried to report the case, but the authorities threatened him. Flash forward to April 17 2020. The doctor succumbed to the novel coronavirus back in February 2020. The two scenarios characterize our world in a nutshell-ignore until when it hits you at a personal level. It took the Chinese authorities several weeks before they could take the Pandemic seriously. They are not alone in that. Almost all countries used the same approach-they deny until when they could not hide anymore. By April 17 2020, the time of writing this reflection, there were 709,000 confirmed cases and 37,000 fatalities (Worldometers, 2020). Just a few weeks ago, the country only had less than 1000 cases. We have similar stories everywhere across the globe in Italy, Spain, France, and other countries.

They all have one thing in common; they failed to realize that the world systems are interconnected; health, environmental, economic, social, political, and technological systems. What was a health issue is now a global financial pandemic affecting all other systems. Instead of people worrying about the disease, they now have to grapple with disrupted livelihoods and communities. During lockdowns, social welfare becomes imperative. Unfortunately, there are no personnel to offer such social programs. Governments continue to send aid to vulnerable populations, but they all seem disillusioned about the supply side of the equation. Even with money, product banks will continue to shrink. The cost of goods will escalate, and inflation will start wiping out peoples wealth and hope.

All this remind me of a specific learning objective of how to integrate multiple contexts in the situational analysis. It seems that we lack, locally and globally, this concept. If there were a coordinated approach to make decisions about COVID-19, flights and human movement would have ceased in January or latest February. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. While some countries implemented effective policies against the spread of the disease, others did not-putting more people at risk. Even today, many others continue to make clumsy decisions, putting communities at risk.

Locally, communities grapple with lack of capacity and poor resource mobilization. COVID-19 has changed that, as each community seems to have the same problem now. Scarcity of resources is no longer a challenge for the few communities. It is ubiquitous, and the systems are tested to the limit (Remuzzi & Remuzzi, 2020). Taking measures against the disease is now becoming a collective approach with people across the globe, taking the initiative very seriously. A war that civil society fought alone now becomes a problem for private citizens on social media, too.

Even as in the student fraternity, we have to adjust to a new dispensation. We are used to class delivery of learning materials. Today, we have to continue learning through online modules. For most of us who partake in practical courses, we have to make do with simulations and other technologies to do or observe lab work and other practical work. Parents who have spent all their work-life in physical job locations now have to work from home. Some are struggling to concentrate, and others are completely overwhelmed. Companies are reporting low employee productivity; as a result, falling revenues, and potential insolvencies (Kang, 2020).

When Gostin and Ayala (2017) wrote about a potential explosive pandemic, they mentioned the importance of empowering vulnerable populations and communities to soften the impact. They lamented the lack of awareness and support. Oppenheim, Gallivan, Madhav, Brown, Serhiyenko, Wolfe and Ayscue (2019) noted the same problems and even proposed a preparedness index. Today, we have evidence, capacity, awareness, and technical support that comes from technology, but we lack the most important of the resources-goodwill. Today, lives are lost; jobs will be lost thanks to the current Pandemic.

However, this Pandemic is nothing new to some people in the world. They have faced similar if not worse challenges. Some North Carolina residents face systemic problems arising from various issues. Imagine a person who has to buy water to brush teeth when there is a water well in the neighbourhood (Semuels, 2017). Imagine people who have to abandon their homes ones in a while to avoid flooding (Mock, 2018).

SOLIYA Connect program helped me internalize society at a different level. I also interacted with the ethics course more profoundly. I did not expect ethical decision-making to be a difficult choice only to see the various governmental decisions causing pain and suffering to vulnerable people. I saw politics supersede sense, humanity, evidence-based decision-making, and ethics. Though I am an international student, I found the cross-cultural competence program difficult, especially when it came to looking at issues proactively. In future, I want to be in charge of policies and decisions, and all these have prepared me to responsible decision-making. It made me realize the importance of trusting empirical evidence and projections. Almost every problem that we discussed in class is a result of ignorance and neglect of the foundations of empirical work.

Issues of climate change, environmental justice, racial injustices, healthcare pandemics, flooding, heat waves, and other pandemics that people around the world face can be solved. I will encourage anyone looking forward to taking this course to open up his or her mind to a global experience. They must be prepared to think critically about the cause and effect of every decision.

References

Gostin, L. O., & Ayala, A. S. (2017). Global health security in an era of explosive pandemic potential. J. Nat'l Sec. L. & Pol'y, 9(1), 53-80. https://ssrn.com/abstract=2910052.

Lu, H., Stratton, C. W., & Tang, Y. W., (2020). Outbreak of Pneumonia of Unknown Etiology in Wuhan China: the Mystery and the Miracle. Journal of Medical Virology, 92(1), 401-402. https://doi.org/10.1002/jmv.25678.

Kang, M. (2020, March 25). Cheesecake Factory tells landlords it won't be able to pay rents on

April 1. https://la.eater.com/2020/3/25/21194144/cheesecake-factory-rent-strike-chain-restaurant. Mock, B., (2018). North Carolina's environmental history is littered with racial injustice. Psmag.com. https://psmag.com/social-justice/environmental-racism-in-north-carolina.

Oppenheim, B., Gallivan, M., Madhav, N. K., Brown, N., Serhiyenko, V., Wolfe, N. D., & Ayscue, P. (2019). Assessing global preparedness for the next Pandemic: development and application of an Epidemic Preparedness Index. BMJ global health, 4(1), e001157. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2018-001157.

Remuzzi, A., & Remuzzi, G. (2020). COVID-19 and Italy: what next?. The Lancet. 395: 1225-28. https://doi.org/10.1016/ S0140-6736(20)30627-9.

Semuels, A. (2017). The Saga of North Carolina's Contaminated Water. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/the-saga-of-north-carolinas-contaminated-water/521211/.

Worldometers, (2020). COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic: Coronavirus cases. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/.