COVID-19 Pandemic: The Two Sides of the Same Coin

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic appeared suddenly, spreading all over the globe, making an impact on all aspects of our lives, and astonishing the completely unprepared world governments and the health care systems. The aim of this review is to examine the present and future consequences of the pandemic’s psychological, social, political, economic and cultural impacts. Our lives have changed abruptly and dramatically. The high rates of morbidity and mortality, as well as the unpredictable duration of the pandemic, have caused anxiety and fear in many individuals. Facial masks wearing, distance keeping, the people gathering prohibition, and the introduction of quarantine and lockdowns, have profoundly distressed every single individual - of about 5.3 billion of the adult global population. However, designing and producing vaccines has been a great medical success. On the other hand, vaccine nationalism, the politization of the pandemic crisis, and vaccine hesitancy will continue to undermine the main epidemiological goal: a prompt and extensive vaccination of the global population, in the addition to the natural immunity of the survivors. Without a radical political and social reorganization, and individual behaviors changes regarding this crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic could last for several years.