Pandemics
Pandemic is a globally popular term for contagious infectious diseases that spreads among the people due to physical interaction between them. The outbreak of such diseases cross boundaries of the countries through infected carriers. These carriers are people mostly unfamiliar about their infectious state due to no visible symptoms. They travel to other countries becoming a source of infection, spread by direct or indirect contact, sneezing, and coughing in close vicinities (Manning, 2001)
Contagious diseases like influenza, cholera, dengue, respiratory infections, Ebola, AIDS, etc. have devastated human societies more than fifteen times since the 6th Century. The worst impacts of the pandemic are the crisis in the healthcare system, financial meltdown due to the loss in business activities, joblessness, social insecurity, and most importantly, the loss of worthy human lives (Qiu, 2017).
In the 20th century, influenza related diseases hit massive populations of the major countries across the globe. The origin of Spanish flu (1918-19) could not be confirmed but it was another variant of the H1N1 virus which spread among one-third of the world’s population including people in countries like Spain, the USA, EU, etc. killing more than 20 million (Qiu, 2017). Hong Kong virus was caused by influenza, a combination of various genes from H2N2 and H3N2 viruses. The estimated deaths due to this pandemic were around one million people in China, EU, UK, USA, etc (CDC, 2019a). The wave of Asian flu originated from Singapore in 1957 and spread from Hong Kong to USA within months causing more than one million deaths (CDC, 2019b).
In the 21st century, the outbreak of the new virus gene H1N1 also called “Swine flu” started in the year 2009 in United States of America. H1N1 gene had unique properties that in past were neither observed in humans nor in animals. The virus penetrated the boundaries of countries and reached New Zealand, Israel, and many counties in the Europe where it resulted in deaths of over two hundred thousand people with majority comprising of elderly population.
The outbreak of pandemic called COVID-19 is the recent and ongoing contagious disease that is believed to be originated from China in 2019 and has infected almost 37.4 million people around the world, whereas more than 1 million people have lost their lives till now. COVID-19 is a novel variation in the family of Coronaviruses which can harm both humans as well as animals (WHO, 2020).
History of various pandemics observed in 19th and 20th century is presented in Table 1.
Table 1. History of the most Contagious Diseases spread worldwide during 19th & 20th Centuries
| Disease | Timeline | Geographic Spread | Reported Deaths |
| COVID-19 | 2019 - to date | More than 200 countries, including USA, EU, Asia, Middle East, etc | 1 million |
| H1N1 Swine Flu | 2009-10 | USA, EU, UK, Mexico, Israel, NZ | 0.2 million |
| Asian Flu | 1957-58 | China, US, UK | 1.5Million |
| Hong Kong Flu | 1968-69 | China, HK, UK, USA, EU | 10Million |
| Spanish Flu | 1918-19 | Spain, USA, EU, UK | >20Million |
The upcoming sections describe the impact of Covid-19 on healthcare, GDP, education and tourisms. These sections also discuss the limitations in the conventional healthcare systems and its inability to cope with pandemics.