2020 has been quite the eventful year. One of the events that spun the world on its axis was and is the Corona-virus. With its first reported case in Wuhan City, China, the virus has successfully permeated most of the world.
Over 6 million people have been documented to have contracted the virus. The figure of individuals who have contracted the virus and are yet to be documented can only be imagined to be of a large proportion in relation to the documented. This comes with half a million deaths, and thankfully a lot of recoveries. However, the recovered individuals still have a long way ahead to be fully healed from the effects of the virus health-wise. The virus has also taken a lot from the over 7 billion people in the world.
It has taken their time, health, passion, jobs, loved ones, their security, their usual pace in life. Over 20 million Americans have lost their jobs. The unemployment rate is at a new high with most of the gains from the last recession completely wiped. Over 2 million Canadians as well have lost their jobs and the unemployment rate in Russia has risen by a staggering 30%.
With the population at large behind closed doors, and only able to feel the sunlight on bare skin once or twice a week, mental health has taken a nose dive. Individuals who have lost their jobs, family, freedom, from the virus are and experiencing depression and suicidal thoughts cannot, as of the moment, be properly diagnosed. Stay-at-home orders and closure of facilities has delayed this diagnosis and the needed counselling that follows. Yet with the staggering increases in the mental health of adults globally, the more than apparent effects of the virus are still difficult to ascertain.
This can mostly be attributed to the the unsurprising positive outcome of the virus. The skies are clearer, the hospitals have fewer visitations, wildlife is returning and so is the greenery, showing the detrimental effect of the human print on earth. Every situation that faces mankind has its pluses and its minuses. But it is safe to say, the virus has given out a hearty helping of both which will determine the path of the future years to come
