Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic was more than a health crisis because it affected the world’s human, economic, and social stability. Although we are not yet over the coronavirus pandemic because new mutations like the Micron variant are emerging across many countries, the 2020 outbreak was the most destructive phase. The 2020 widespread COVID-19 infections led to a dramatic loss of lives and presented unprecedented challenges to public health, food systems, and work life. The economic and social destruction caused by the pandemic was devastating, where millions of the world’s workforces risked losing their livelihoods due to constant lockdowns and border closures. Many vulnerable people, such as the homeless, were exposed to precarious situations with curfews and lockdowns affecting their daily lives. The coronavirus crisis revealed weaknesses in the world’s preparedness for COVID-19 to provide the minimum health, education, employment, and well-being requirements.
Weakness and Strengths Exposed by Covid-19 in Our Society
The pandemic revealed the deep inequities in our society, where millions of people without paid work or sick leave had to stay home without financial support. It was already difficult for people with secure jobs, stable housing, and economic security to deal with the difficult times, meaning it must have been worse for those lacking all three. Secondly, the COVID-19 disruption showed that humans favor personal rights over our duties to each other. For instance, some people failed to self-isolate or recognize that humans are connected to one another, making the virus spread faster. Finally, income loss and insufficient access to health care exposed our frail social safety nets. Therefore, we must upgrade our public health infrastructure and address the underlying economic and social inequities.
Despite the crisis, our strength as a society was demonstrated by state capacity and consensually oriented collective culture to mobilize against the virus. Albeit early stumbles that sort to stem the flow of information instead of the virus, various governments acted decisively to enforce containment measures. Radical information transparency, including public disclosure of tracked cases, closure of schools and public gatherings, widespread testing, work-from-home, and face-mask policies, alongside other measures, facilitated the recovery from the pandemic. The heart of sharing, where people volunteered to donate foodstuffs to the less fortunate, showed our strength as a single race with intertwined destiny. Nations working together, organizations, and individuals cared for each other through the donation of face masks, financial assistance, and manufacturing and distributing vaccines that were useful in containing the virus. Overall, we learned that well-being, safety, and health depend on those of others. Therefore, protecting the most vulnerable members of society benefits everyone.
Roles Leaders in Government Should Play
A strong political leadership, a technocratic approach, and a highly skilled public sector workforce could result in even greater success in managing crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. was marked with misinformation and contractions, even from senior political figures. As a result, politics significantly impacted pandemic response effectiveness, even at the clinical level (Phillips et al. 1). At a time of crisis like COVID-19, leaders should provide reliable information and maintain utmost transparency, which is essential for pandemic response. Expert clinicians addressed decision-makers with authority, emphasizing safety, quality, and service obligation (Phillips et al. 8). The bold move helped enhance transparent communication, collaboration, mutual respect and trust, and unity between front-line clinicians and top-level administrators.
Government leadership requires building and sustaining trust in times of uncertainty like the coronavirus pandemic. When political, administrative, and clinical actors collaborate in a partnership characterized by trust, transparency, and evidence, governance becomes effective (Phillips et al. 12). Political and healthcare leaders must leverage the cultural assets of relationship-building and community cohesion to strengthen their responses. It is expected that leaders, including those in health organizations, will respond to a crisis’s direct and indirect effects with little time for preparation and in a constantly changing environment (Ahern and Loh 266). For instance, social media has disrupted the critical task of crisis leadership. Still, government leaders and scientific and public health experts need to remain trusted by the public during a pandemic. Therefore, they must inspire confidence from past behaviors through honest actions and motives.
Ethical Issues of the COVID-19 Pandemic
The public health facilities became overwhelmed, including the medics on the front lines, due to rising cases and complications of COVID-19. However, the main ethical question was how medical practitioners presided over the destiny of patients when equipment cannot support patients in critical conditions. For instance, the decision on whom to allocate an intensive care bed caused a dilemma because one cannot justify their choices if the other person died. However, most people seemed to agree that a patient’s ability to benefit from treatment and to survive should be first-order considerations (McGuire et al. 16). Therefore, guidance on the ethical allocation of scarce resources hinged on who is more likely to benefit than life preservation.
Front-line healthcare workers took significant risks during the COVID-19 pandemic amidst an inadequate supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) and an overwhelming surge of covid patients (McGuire et al. 16). Society arguably owes them reciprocity, prioritizing them for medical treatment and vaccines. However, controversy arises about whether they should receive priority for the scarcest and most critical facilities like ventilator support and ICU beds. For instance, it is difficult to determine if physicians, nurses, social workers, and emergency medical technicians should receive priority over those working in hospital transport, pharmacy, and security. Other issues arose from uneasiness around the sudden albeit temporary loss of personal liberties. Citizens questioned the restrictions of their rights enforced through quarantine, curfews, closed borders, and limited ability to move freely. Some were denied access to family members even when seriously sick or dying. Contact tracing technologies also raised concerns about data privacy, such as intrusion of personal privacy via surveillance.
Being a good citizen in the face of a pandemic should start with those who are government-mandated to provide essential services. Government officials should take responsibility and improve public health infrastructure, as well as equip them with appropriate facilities to prevent dilemmas faced by medics during COVID-19. Everyone else should focus on what they can control, such as complying with COVID-19 guidelines and making intentional choices with the greater good of others in mind. Overall, we can define ourselves during this pandemic by using our skills and resources to better humanity.
Conclusion
COVID-19 revealed the inequities in our society and the underdeveloped public healthcare infrastructure. It showed that humans favor personal rights over duties to others, even during a pandemic. However, our collective culture demonstrated the strength to fight the virus, including the government’s bold move to implement containment measures. The success against the COVID-19 pandemic could be attributed to information transparency, willingness to share resources and collaboration in vaccine production. The government needs to upgrade the public health infrastructure and address inequities evident during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. A stronger leadership quality, including transparent communication, collaboration, mutual respect, and trust during times of uncertainty, would be fundamental in fighting the next pandemic. However, ethical concerns must be our primary concern in fighting the next pandemic, such as criteria for prioritizing patient care, restriction of civil liberties, and allocation of scarce but critical infrastructure.
Works Cited
Ahern, Susannah and Erwin Loh. “Leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic: building and sustaining trust in times of uncertainty.” British Journal of Management Leader, vol. 5, no. 4, 2020, pp. 266-269.
McGuire, Amy, et al. “Ethical Challenges Arising in the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Overview from the Association of Bioethics Program Directors (ABPD) Task Force.” The American Journal of Bioethics, vol. 20, no. 7, 2020, pp. 15-27.
Phillips, George, et al. “Lessons from the frontline: Leadership and governance experiences in the COVID-19 pandemic response across the Pacific region.” The Lancet Regional Health-Western Pacific, vol. 25, no. 1, 2022, pp. 1-14.