Razu Ahmed
Coronavirus pandemic has already visited most of the countries of the world and our beloved country is not excluded from this. It has become an affliction for the normal livelihood of people. Nowadays, we are passing dark and depressing times and every day people of the whole world are bombarded with news of death, hardship, and mismanagement of insufficient resources.
The first victims of coronavirus in our country were marked on 8 March 2020, according to IEDCR. This deadly virus has so far killed over a hundred people across the country and the number of infected are over 3000. COVID-19 has created a hazardous situation, in Bangladesh’s context, because most of the people of our country are not conscious, our medical installations are not good enough and we are not solvent economically.
Truly speaking, it has created panic among the people of our country. Scientists across the globe are trying to work out antidotes to the COVID-19 but they are not completely successful yet. They can't say for sure that deadly coronavirus would last how many days.
Various organizations, working with coronavirus and also the World Health Organization (WHO) has affirmed that social distancing and public health hygiene is the key to counter this coronavirus outbreak. On 23 March 2020, the government of Bangladesh has declared general holidays from March 26 until April 4 with a view to stopping the sweep of deadly coronavirus and it has extended later to ensure social distancing.
Social distancing measure and the lockdown of private and public institutions have put a profound impact on day labored, rickshaw pullers and domestic help, disadvantaged people, and other vulnerable communities. They depend on their daily income for their survival.
The people living under poverty who live in overcrowded slums or on the side of the street and the rural people in the margin, social distancing and buying of masks and hand sanitizers are not the realms of possibilities. They need their basic necessities like food, medicine, etc. to survive. Social distancing measures and lockdown have terminated all sorts of movement of people which has made low-income people jobless.
As a result, on the side of the street around the residential areas of different cities and at tea stalls and the village market in rural areas it is still visible that people are reluctant to stay inside their homes. It makes them more vulnerable to be infected by a coronavirus and increases the possibilities of spreading COVID-19 among others.
Since there are no job opportunities for low-income people during the down, they can't earn money for their daily livelihood. As a result of their joblessness, there is nothing to eat in their homes. So, his or her family remains hungry which compels them to breach social distancing measures. If people from the lower-class and middle-lower class can't earn money and can't afford their basic necessities like food and medicine, how they will put themselves into their home and capitulate to social distancing?
Abraham Maslow, a well-known scientist and management specialist was born in New York, in his theory ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ he classified human needs in five levels such as physiological, safety and security, belongingness, self-esteem, and self-actualization. This theory has claimed that all needs of human beings have a certain priority and the needs of one level must at least partially fulfilled before a person can realize higher needs.
When a person succeeds in satisfying important needs, he or she will try then to satisfy the next important needs. Hierarchy of Needs theory has provided a message that if a person can't fulfill his or her first level of needs, he or she will breach the social rules and regulations and will try to meet his or her important needs. Here foods and medicines (physiological) are the first levels of needs and social distancing (safety and security) is the second level of needs.
So, it is imperative for the government and other humanitarian organizations should take effective initiatives to meet the first category of needs to keep people inside their homes. Otherwise, people must breach the social distancing measure to meet their basic needs and it will put themselves, their families also others into at risk.
However, in this harrowing and hazardous situation, we have imperturbable news that the government of Bangladesh and different social welfare organizations working with human welfare have come forward to help the people from the lower class, disadvantaged people and other vulnerable communities by providing food assistance, medicine, masks and hand sanitizers, etc.
But low-income people and other vulnerable communities e still in need of basic necessities like food and medicine because the infinitesimal assistance is not enough for them to stay inside their home. In this critical situation, we should work collectively before the creation of disastrous moments.
If the government of our country doesn't rectify the situation carefully, the people our country, particularly lower-income people, as well as the disadvantaged group, will die before death and the country will turn into a country of a cadaver.
A report titled on Advocacy for Social Change conducted by Brac, one of the leading NGOs of our country, has said that Low-income families of the country are suffering a great decline in their earnings since the enforcement of social distancing measures and lockdowns to fight COVID-19.
Extreme poverty has hiked 60 percent than before, while 14 percent of people do not have any food at home. Another report conducted by Oxfam, exhumated that coronavirus may push half billion people into poverty and developing countries like Bangladesh are at acute risk.
In this circumstances, I would like to request the honorable government to ensure food assistance immediately to the millions of low-income people, domestic help, disadvantaged group, and other vulnerable communities who are suffering from acute food shortage across the country as well as must focus on large scale awareness campaigns on prevention of coronavirus and let them remain inside their home which will be the key to fight against novel coronavirus.
Razu Ahmed is student at Institute of Social Welfare and Research (ISWR), University of Dhaka
