Covid-19: time for a paradigm shift

When hospitals were flooding with coronavirus patients in Italy, health authorities there had to make a difficult and painful choice. Doctors had to leave older people or those with less chances of survival to die as Italy did not have enough ventilators. Remember, Italy, unlike Pakistan and many developing countries, has one of the best public healthcare systems. But even the most advanced healthcare system was overwhelmed by the pandemic. The situation is not different in other developed countries either, including the United States, the world’s superpower, which has F-16 fighter jets ready for sale but not enough ventilators.

Experts had been warning about the outbreak of a coronavirus-type pandemic for many years. Microsoft founder and billionaire Bill Gates had, in 2015, warned in unequivocal terms that the next major crisis in the world would not be triggered by a nuclear war or a conflict, but by a pandemic. He said while the world was fully prepared to deal with the possible outbreak of nuclear war, it had done little to tackle the outbreak of virus. He was not alone to issue such clear and explicit warnings. Others too had stated the same. But, unfortunately the world, particularly the powerful countries, had ignored those warnings.

One of the reasons the world has been struggling to cope with the challenge is that human development has never been the focus, particularly in developing countries. Health and education have been the most neglected sectors. Today, you could easily get all the sophisticated weapons at your doorstep but the world does not have enough N-95 masks even for the medical staff treating coronavirus patients. There are not even enough ventilators in the world. China and other manufacturing countries have advanced bookings at least for a year for the ventilators. The US and Europe might not have needed to announce a relief package amounting to trillions of dollars to fight Covid-19 had they set their priorities right.

Countries like Pakistan where health, education and the social sector have never been the priority of the state are facing a daunting challenge. Just imagine that a country with a population of 220 million has just 1,500 ventilators. Had successive governments in Pakistan, both military and civilian, focused on the social sector, the situation would not have been this dire. One of the factors why human development had never been our priority was because of geostrategic realities. Pakistan’s continued hostility with India compelled the country to spend more on defence than, for example, on health and education. There is a justification for defence spending because of the internal and external threats Pakistan has been facing. But the coronavirus outbreak has shown that the time has come to change our priorities. Dr Adil Najam, a renowned academic and intellectual, aptly put it that human development has to be given the same importance as defence. Defence spending becomes meaningless when the country can’t protect its citizens from such pandemics. Human development has now essentially become a national security issue. The world has never come to a halt as it has now because of Covid-19. Today, the US, Russia, China and other big powers can’t use all their military might to suppress the virus. The world seems helpless against an invisible enemy. Pakistan and India have had wars but even those conflicts never brought the two countries to a halt.

The silvering lining, though, is that like all difficult times, this too shall pass. The world will certainly be a different place in post-corona times. In the post-corona world, the focus must be on human development. The powerful countries have a bigger role in seeking this paradigm shift. Remember, this is not the first and certainly not the last pandemic.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 13^th, 2020.

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