COVID- 19 first brought fear to the world's eyes in January 2020. Back then, we had no idea how much destruction and terror it could cause to the world. Now, more than 1 year later with 96.2 million people worldwide being infected and 2.06 million deaths by the novel disease, we can find our lost hope, which we have been deprived of for so long.
In March 2020, we observed the global response to the novel disease which had been infecting people for months against our knowledge. The stock market began to crash as people sold their hope in big companies, planning for the end of the world. They bought out toilet paper, flour, sugar, wipes, bandaids, and other necessities.
The entire world was in immense fear, and people were speculating an apocalypse by the disease we could not stop. Historically, there has been a major virus every 100 years around this time in the century. In 1918, the Spanish flu hit the world causing "at least 50 million worldwide" deaths according to the CDC, in 1817 the first Cholera pandemic occurred. All of these factors caused major speculation and fear for people worldwide.
Now in January 2021, a lot of the world's resources have gone into creating a vaccine and a few have gone public. After lots of panic from the world about COVID- 19, some people are hesitant about vaccination. As of mid-January, only 52 countries have distributed any COVID- 19 vaccinations to their citizens according to Our World in Data. Not everyone in the world has a chance to get a vaccination, and many countries that have any are giving certain groups of people priority. In the US alone, "based on the recent rate, it might take a year - until January 2022 - for every American to get at least one shot" according to the Wall Street Journal.
Usually, creating a vaccine for a virus and then testing that vaccine takes "5- 10 years" according to the NC State University, and the vaccines which are becoming available to the public took around a year to complete that process.
Other people believe that COVID- 19 is a hoax, as former President Donald Trump said in a rally "this is their new hoax," in which he referred to the opposing political party, claiming that they created this virus for political gain. Additionally, many people are terrified of the side- effects and also potential long-term repercussions that could come from a vaccine and the injection. Many people suffer from a fear of needles, with even "at least 20 percent avoid any medical treatment as a result" according to PharmaJet. Others could face severe danger by taking the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine because of severe allergic reactions that have arisen after the injection; some people have gone into anaphylaxis which could lead to death if untreated. Other people don't want to get it because of the 'herd immunity' which could be created without some people getting the vaccination. "Herd immunity" is created when a large portion of the population is immune to a disease, which "many epidemiologists have offered has been 60 to 70 percent" for COVID- 19 according to The New York Times.
Despite the hesitation, the majority of vaccinations, the two leading ones being Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, have around a 95% effectiveness in clinical trials. Many of the world leaders have backed the vaccine, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "I believe in this vaccine," according to AP News. According to the BBC, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said "it will gradually make a huge, huge difference."
There is hope to be had for the new vaccines and the changing world reactions to the novel Coronavirus. Hopefully, the world continues the trend of taking the pandemic seriously, and people receive vaccinations when they can. For us to promptly return to the "normal" state we were in before the virus, our nations and their people need to work together.
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