Socioeconomic
activities in Nepal get troubled due to disruption of transportation and human
movement as a part of combating COVID-19, leading more poverty and increasing
vulnerability to the COVID-19 (Chaudhary et al., 2021). The situation is also
added by closing of open borders with India and other foreign air routes which
resulted the shortage of goods and supplies, particularly medical goods like
masks, sanitizer, personal protective equipment’s (PPE) etc (WHO, 2020). Similarly
in tourism sectors, huge investments frozen and thousands became unemployed due
to postponement of Visit Nepal 2020 and country wise lockdown which negatively
affect the uplifting socio-economic condition of the locals (Shivakoti, A.,
2021).About 3.2 million
peoples of Nepal are abroad for work, study and other reasons. Nepal get
remittance from them and it is the fifth most remittance dependent country in
the world (Paudel and Subedi, 2020). It has estimated that the remittances may
decrease during COVID-19 limiting the sources of Nepalese households leading to
poverty and deterring the uplifting good life style (World Bank, 2020).
The
disruption in the chain of agricultural production and distribution due to
mis-concept of COVID-19 transmission by agricultural products, closing of
processing plants and lack of proper market forced farmers to damp milk and
vegetables. Such activities reduced the supply, generated the black marketing
and increased price in markets (Paudel et al., 2020)
Beside these
all, education sector gets highly affected. About all schools and collages
remain closed. To minimize that focus has been carried out on virtual classes
but it remained less effective. The lockdown, self-isolation, social distancing
and quarantine have affected the overall physical, mental, spiritual and social
wellbeing of the Nepalese. Although these measures are taken for the protection
of people from COVID-19, it has created fear, nervousness, anxiety and uncertainty
among the Nepalese.
Different
studies have been carried out physiological effects of the pandemic’s
socioeconomic crises and revealed different problems like Isomania, anaxiety,
depression, somatization (Zihang et al., 2020) fear for their personal safety
(Ripp et al., 2020), stress, negativity, poor sleep quality etc. (Lai et. al.,
2020; Wang et al., 2020; Varshney et al., 2020; Xiao et al., 2020; Xie et al.,
2020). No such researches are conducted in prospective of Nepalese society but
above finding may not be different than the Nepal. Induvial persons in the
society are talking about the unemployment resulting depression, anxiety,
domestic violence, hunger and ultimately suicide. Economic recessions have put
considerable financial strain on many households, potentially leading to a rise
in dysfunctional tension, family breakdown, crime, depression, and domestic
violence. So, these problems are needs to be addressed immediately.
References
Central
Bureau of Statistics, & International Labour Organization. (2019). Report
on theNepalLabor Force Survey 2017/2018. Central Bureau of Statistics.
Chaudhary,
D., Sapkota, M. and Maharjan, K. 2021. Socioeconomic Impacts and Opportunities
of COVID-19 for Nepal. Springer Singapore. Edition 1, Chapter 9. DOI:
101007/978/981-33-4236-1-9.
Lai, J., Ma,
S., & Wang, Y. (2020). Factors associated with mentalhealth outcomes among
health care workers exposedto coronavirus disease 2019. JAMA Network Open,
3(3),e203976.
Poudel K. and
Subedi P., 2020.Impact of COVID-19 pandemic onsocioeconomic and mental
healthaspects in Nepal. International Journal ofSocial Psychiatry2020, Vol.
66(8) 748–755.DOI: 10.1177/0020764020942247
Poudel, P.
B., Poudel, M. R., Gautam, A., Phuyal, S., Tiwari, C.K., . . . Bashyal, S.
(2020). COVID-19 and its global impacton food and agriculture. Journal of
Biology and Today’sWorld, 9(5), 221–225.
Ripp, J.,
Peccoralo, L., & Charney, D. (2020). Attending to theemotional well-being
of the healthcare workforce in a NewYork City health system during the COVID-19
pandemic.Academic Medicine. Advance online publication.https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000003414
Shivakoti,
A. 2021. Impact of COVID-19 on Tourism of Nepal. The Gaze Journal of Tourism
and Hospitality, 12(1): 1-22. http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/gaze.v12i1.35674
Varshney, M.,
Parel, J. T., Raizada, N., & Sarin, S. K. (2020).Initial psychological
impact of COVID-19 and its correlatesin Indian community: An online
(FEEL-COVID) survey.Plos One, 15(5), Article e0233874. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0233874
Wang, C.,
Pan, R., Wan, X., Tan, Y., Xu, L., Ho, C. S., & Ho,R. S. (2020). Immediate
psychological responses and associatedfactors during the initial stage of the
2019 coronavirusdisease (COVID-19) epidemic among the generalpopulation in
China. International Journal of EnvironmentResearch and Public Health, 17(5),
Article 1729. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17051729
World
Health Organization. (2020a). Coronavirus disease(COVID-19) advice for the
public.
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-forpublic
Xiao, H.,
Zhang, Y., Kong, D., Li, S., & Yang, N. (2020). Theeffects of social
support on sleep quality of medical stafftreating patients with coronavirus
disease 2019 (COVID-19)in January and February 2020 in China. Medical
SciencesMonitoring, 26, Article e923549. https://doi.org/10.12659/MSM.923549
Xie, X., Xue,
Q., & Zhou, Y. (2020). Mental health status amongchildren in home
confinement during the coronavirus disease2019 outbreak in Hubei province,
china. JAMA Pediatrics.Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2020.1619.
Zhang, W.,
Wang, K., Yin, L., Zhao, W., Xue, Q., Peng,M., . . . Wang, H.-X. (2020). Mental
health and psychologicalproblems of medical health workers duringthe COVID-19
epidemic in China. Psychotherapy andPsychosomatics. Advance online publication.
https://doi.org/10.1159/000507639
Post a Comment