Solution
Preeti answered on
Oct 16 2021
Healthcare: Communicable diseases
Introduction
The underlying assignment aims at discussing the impact of recent out
eak of a pandemic named novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) on Australia specific population group ‘Adolescents’. The disease named Coronavirus is an infectious disease caused by a virus named Coronavirus. The virus is firstly appeared in the Wuhan City of China, and, later on, spread to most countries, including Australia. WHO declared out
eak of COVID-19 as a pandemic and reiterated countries for taking immediate actions and scaling up responses for treating, detecting and reducing transmission for saving people’s lives.
The detailed analysis of impact of this communicable disease on national level, and, on specific population group is discussed below:
Communicable disease at global level
At global level, WHO reported 38,394, 169 confirmed cases and 1,089,047 deaths (WHO, 2020). With respect to Australia situation, there are 27,341 confirmed cases with 904 deaths from January 2020 to 15th October 2020 (WHO: Australia, 2020). The people infected with COVID-19 virus experience several symptoms such as coughing, sneezing, and moderate respiratory illness; it recovers without any need of special treatment. Older people are said to be most vulnerable group, and, those, who are having problems like cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory disease, cancer, and diabetes also likely to develop this serious illness(Covid-19 impact: Australian GDP falls most on record; recession confirmed, 2020).
WHO argues that best way and strategy for preventing transmission of COVID-19 is staying well informed and updated about the disease, its causes and how it spreads. People are advised to protect themselves and others from transmission of its infection by developing regular habit of washing their hands, not touching face and nose, and, using an alcohol based rub on frequent basis. The main source of spread of COVID-19 is primarily through droplets of saliva, discharge from nose when an infected person coughs or sneezes. It is, therefore, important to learn and develop respiratory etiquette for preventing its transmission (Child, Smith and Tesvic, 2020).
Impact of communicable disease on individual and national level
In the beginning of 2020, Chinese city of Wuhan with 11 million residents, and, then the province of Hubei (60 million residents) were affected by this pandemic (WHO, 2020). Since then, people began to notice disruption of COVID-19 to other economies as movement of people is strictly controlled and restricted, and, disruption of supply chains.
In Australia, the impacts of COVID-19 is experienced on domestic business which depends on the movement of people from China to Australia, and, secondly, discretionary expenditure businesses. As international supply chains are increasingly affected, inventories are running low with rise in commodity prices. The prices of commodity increases on the hypothesis that Chinese government plans to stimulate economy by introducing a new wave of infrastructure spending, but, again it fell down with the slowdown of Chinese economy (The Impact and Implications of COVID-19: An Australian Perspective, 2020).
Second movement is noticed in Australian Dollar (AUD) which is a proxy for the Chinese Yuan (RMB). With the increase in number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and slowdown of China’s economy, Australian Dollar depreciated against US dollar to new levels, which is seen since global financial crisis. Projecting forward, longevity of COVID-19 is a real constraint and remains an uncertainty across the globe. The increasing size, volume, widespread impact, and, an increased inter-connectivity of supply chains make this less likely for global economies to return to normal pace (Coronavirus Response, 2020).
At individual level, impact of COVID-19 is examined on ‘Adolescents’ in Australia who are found to be most psychologically affected by out
eak of this pandemic. According to the findings of a New Study conducted by researchers at Black Dog Institute and University of New South Wales, adolescents in Australia are greatly affected by this pandemic (Robertson, 2020). The survey indicated observed more than 700 adolescents aged between 12 to 18 years having elevated rates of psychological distress.
On comparing their psychological distress with pre-pandemic, it is found that pandemic has negatively affected their friendship, family relationships and learning. A significant proportion of adolescents also reported experiencing high levels of uncertainty about the future, sleeping problems, less physical exercise, and, a reduced sense of well-being. It is reported that mental health impacts are highly negative and worse among adolescents who has experienced some kind of anxiety and depression in their past life time (COVID-19 and its impact on business, 2020).
The changes in physical and mental health during this pandemic are presented with the help of underlying image:
(Source: Robertson, 2020).
As a matter of fact, COVID-19 pandemic has...