It was supposed to be a great year, but all of a sudden, the world came to a stand still as people are forced to stay home since the outbreak of covid-19 became mainstream.
Since the first case of the novel coronavirus was reported in Chinese city of Wuhan on 17th November, 2019, it has spread rapidly to many countries with currently confimed cases standing at 1,276,587, out of which 69,522 deaths were recorded and 265,944 recovery according to data from worldometer.
But while other developed and hardest hit nations are already staring economic depression in the eye, developing countries especially those who rely on oil revenues, are more to be pitied according to Fareed Zakaria, an author and journalist at CNN.
"The shock of Covid-19 is being felt in countries like China, Italy, Spain, and the US, but next will come “explosions in the developing world,” where testing has been scarce, as are resources to cope with an economic crash.
"Oil-producing states could see chaos: with oil prices crashing even before Covid-19 hit, countries like Libya, Nigeria, Iran, Iraq, and Venezuela could see economic catastrophes resulting in “political turmoil, refugees, even revolutions, on a scale we have not seen for decades.
"The world entered this cris*s with mountains of public debt and with global cooperation at a nadir. The problem we face is broad and global but unfortunately the responses are increasingly narrow and parochial”.
Some positive efforts were made by the Goodluck Jonathan administration, but which the current Buhari government failed to improve upon, thus making the country vulnerable to external economic shocks.
There's the problem of corruption and lack of prudency in managing scarce resources, in addition to mounting debts. Surely Nigeria isn't ready for what's coming.
In another update, the spread of conspiracy theories linking the COVID-19 to the roll out of 5G networks has been described as "complete rubbish" and "biologically impossible." There theories have also been branded "the worst kind of fake news" by NHS England Medical Director Stephen Powis.
"The present epidemic is caused by a virus that is passed from one infected person to another. We know this is true. We even have the virus growing in our lab, obtained from a person with the illness. Viruses and electromagnetic waves that make mobile phones and internet connections work are different things. As different as chalk and cheese," he says.
To better describe the position of 5G in the electromagnetic spectrum, a graphic representation which can be seen below, was shared by the BBC.