Economy

By: Nina Pnacek, Farid Naghizade, Bahar. H. Epsili, Adam Ferianc, Lilly Keres, Radin Samsami and Barbara Carlson

Coronavirus Pandemic and Economy Crisis
Bahar H. Epsili

 The COVID-19 outbreak had major effects on the economy and most industries.  Businesses all over the world are facing failure and people are at risk of mass unemployment.

This disease was first reported in Wuhan China in December 2019 and the world hasn’t been the same ever since. With this disease taking over people’s lives and the economy, we’re at a high risk of poverty and an economic crash. With at least 100,000 cases and many deaths around most continents, many local businesses have shut down because of lack of sales and low incomes, with a prediction that the economy will have $1.1 trillion in lost income. Many businesses are closing every day; restaurants shutting down, and most others have low purchasing power.  It’s hard to imagine the economy getting back to normal.
With governments bailing out many big corporations and airline companies, businesses who are at major risk of shutting down are the small business and local businesses. 

Coronavirus isn’t the only export from China, in fact, most of our goods are made in China, from what you wear to the electronic device you’re reading this article from.
 
Tourism, also has been greatly affected since the pandemic started, with fewer people traveling or able to travel due to high risk or low income.  The hospitality industry is estimated to lose $1 billion per month. Restaurants and the entertainment industry are majorly impacted, with thousands of these businesses being forced to close down, permanently or temporarily. Sport matches, concerts, galleries, and venues are all closed or rescheduled to reduce mass gatherings that could spread the virus. However, musicians and entertainers aren’t the most affected by the pandemic thanks to the internet, with many artists using their platforms to spread positivity in these hard times by releasing their arts through apps, and free live stream concerts for their fans. 

Also, many people were looking forward to the Olympics this year which was postponed until 2021.  Life isn’t the same during the pandemic, and we need to look after each other in times like this, with less purchasing power and less production, the economy is predicted to crash. Big corporations and the ones you see on the news aren’t the only one’s going through a tough time at the moment, however, small businesses and business owners are the most vulnerable, and they might shut down at any moment. So take a look around you and support your local businesses and places in your community.

How to Put an End to World’s Economic Problems

Sources:

Climate Council  /  13 January 2019. “11 Countries Leading the Charge on Renewable Energy.” Climate Council, 17 July 2019, www.climatecouncil.org.au/11-countries-leading-the-charge-on-renewable-energy/. 

22, Waste360 Staff | Apr. “Study Puts Economic, Social Cost on Ocean Plastic Pollution.” Waste360, 22 Apr. 2019, www.waste360.com/plastics/study-puts-economic-social-cost-ocean-plastic-pollution.

Lora Jones, Daniele Palumbo & David Brown. “Coronavirus: A Visual Guide to the Economic Impact.” BBC News, BBC, 29 June 2020, www.bbc.com/news/business-51706225.

“Real Time World Statistics.” Worldometer, www.worldometers.info/.

Stories of how COVID-19 affected some businesses

The story of an owner of several restaurants and how they survived the pandemic. 

When the pandemic started and everyone was scared people stopped going to restaurants, cafes and bars and since this person owned a few restaurants, a cafe and was supposed to open a farm it hit him pretty hard. He had to fire a lot of people. Some of them were his friends, and he had to move the opening of the farm because he didn’t have enough employees to work there. Now you must be thinking that this is not that bad. I mean he owns a few restaurants so he must be rich. Well, the truth is that he invested quite a lot of money into the farm that he was about to open so he was in negative numbers.  He had debt.  Luckily during the summer things started to loosen up. He could hire some people and on August 1st, 2020  he could open the farm he worked so hard on. And even though the pandemic was still spreading, people started to come.  They were in their homes for so long and there was not a farm like that in the area. And even thought the farm didn’t earn that much money it could pay for the employees so they didn’t have to borrow money from his other restaurants. Now the pandemic is worse in Slovakia but everyone got used to it so it’s not that bad, this is why you should support new businesses, without the people that came to the farm the owner would be in debt and would have to close it, now thanks to the people that came we have something new in our area that makes us better as a place to visit and as a place to live.

Nina Pnacek 

How COVID-19 affected my dads business

COVID-19 or coronavirus has affected many many businesses around the world and one these businesses is my dad’s restaurant. During the first months of the pandemic the restaurant was open but due to the virus not many people would come and as a result we had to pay for the chefs and employees, but without any profit.  We also had to pay for the ingredients too. In these months we didn’t have any profit but we had to pay some money from our savings. And now that the government told us to close the restaurant we didn’t have a choice but to throw out everything that was left behind in the restaurant. This is the effect of corona virus on my dad’s business.

Radin Samsami

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Coronavirus vs pharma industry

I live in a family full of doctors, so I heard a lot of stories about how the recent Coronavirus pandemic affected their lives and work. My mum, who is a brand manager in a pharmaceutical company called Takeda, had her daily life changed because of the Coronavirus pandemic. The restrictions that the government set changed the way my mum is working for a long time. Now she has to work from home, which is a change she doesn’t like, because her job requires a lot of talking to people and meeting with them. It is a lot harder to talk to people through mobile devices than to just meet them in person, and it also takes much more effort to connect to people like doctors and other health care workers.  The biggest problem about working from home is that a lot of time is wasted because of technical difficulties and technical skills that some doctors don’t have during the online meetings. For my mum it is much harder to present some data or graphs through mobile calls and online meetings than if she met those people in real life. My mum says it takes a lot more patience to be able to work like that for a longer time.

 However the biggest changes are the ones that not only affect her, but many more people. Because of the restrictions, the educational activities, local and international congresses and other meetings that my mum is organizing can’t be arranged. Meaning that a lot of doctors who rely on the information, knowledge and experiences from these congresses can’t learn them. My mum said that there are basically two options; the first is that they are not going to arrange these congresses at all and the second option is that the congresses and educational events are going to be online, which brings the problems that I already mentioned. 

If the coronavirus pandemic is going to continue it can have a long term effect on some people’s lives working for pharmaceutical companies, mainly for those working as sales representatives. These people are working directly with doctors and due to restrictions they are not allowed to visit them and bring them new information or knowledge meaning that their jobs can be replaced by online activities. 

Adam Ferianc

Plastics in the Ocean

Single-use plastic means for example when someone uses a cup and throws it away after using the cup. For example, bring reusable water bottles to school. 

What happens?

More Than half of the people in the world is throwing plastic in the water except recycle bin.

Then it stays there for more than million years and it kills the animals in the sea. 

Some animals die because of people throwing plastic in the sea.

How can we use less plastic bags?

Tesco used to give away plastic bags for free. Now they sell plastic bags for I think 90 cents.   because they want people to care more about the bags and not throw them away like trash.  Now there are 20% less plastic bags in the sea in my opinion. 

People  bring their own plastic bags or use cloth bags when they go shopping.  My family does this.  

Do you know what single-use plastic is? I used to see people take a new plastic cup when they got a drink of water at school.

Farid Naghizade

Fossil Fuels

Effects of fossil fuels

Fossil fuels have so many effects in our lives and the best example is global warming.  Global warming includes higher temperatures, sea levels rising and many other things that are affected. We can also include air pollution and the diseases that pollution brings with it.

Global warming 

Global warming means rise of temperatures and that means higher use of AC and that leads to higher use of electricity and money wasted. Temperatures rising also leads to melting of the ice in the North and South poles and rise of the sea. After the rise of the sea coastal cities start to flood and that brings a huge amount of damage that the government needs to pay for. And people will migrate from the cities that flooded or from cities with high average temperature to other cities. Also, other cities will suddenly be overpopulated and that means lots of unemployed people. 

Air Pollution

Burning fossil fuels will cause air pollution especially in populated cities. The main issue is diseases and the harmful air that we breath. The diseases are mostly lung diseases such as lung cancer. Not all people can afford good medication because most of them are very expensive. Another problem is the increase in use of air cleaners that also cost money to afford and it uses electricity too that you need to pay for. 

Solution 

We need to use more natural energy like energy gathered from wind, water and sun or light. With using this kind of energy we reduced the amount of fossil fuels burned and less damage to ecosystems, environment and the economy.

Radin Samsami

The High Cost of Fossil Fuels.” The High Cost of Fossil Fuels | Environment America, 30 June 2009, environmentamerica.org/reports/ame/high-cost-fossil-fuels. 

World Hunger

World hunger is a problem that not enough people know how serious it is.  You may think that: okay a few people in Africa are hungry and you might think that it is their fault they are too lazy to work. But the truth is that right now as I am writing this opinion article there are 846,820,269 undernourished people in the world and 9,002,319 died this year from starvation (both of these numbers are growing every three seconds) can you imagine how many little kids are crying right now because they don’t have anything to eat? How many parents are working hungry and thirsty just so they can feed their families? Our society is taught to consume, we eat, use and destroy everything we see. And all we think is what our dinner is going to be tomorrow, how excited we are about the steak we are about to eat but the next day we just forget about it. If I would ask you now when was the last time you ate meat or something sweet you would not be able to tell me (If it wasn’t in the last hour) but a person who starved for their entire life would be able to tell me the exact date. Now I am not saying that eating food is bad or that we should starve ourselves just because other people are hungry, but what I am saying is that we need to be more thankful and aware that we are extremely lucky to have something to eat in our homes and that if you can help the people in any way (even just talking about this) then at least try.

Nina Pnacek

Real Time World Statistics.” Worldometer, www.worldometers.info/.

Survey 1

1. What is your opinion on the current economic situation?

2. What are things that you had to change because of COVID-19?

3. Do you think that the government here in Slovakia is treating the current situation properly? Write down why or why not.

4. Who do you think is most affected by the Coronavirus pandemic?

Survey 2

1. What are some economic problems that you see in the world?

2. Do you think that plastic bags and other products made from plastic are bad for the environment? If yes, write down the reasons why you think they are bad for the environment and possible solutions on how to restrict usage of plastic products.

3. What do you think are the causes of world hunger and what are some health issues that the people who are affected by it are having?

4. Fossil fuels are becoming a much bigger problem. What do you think could be an effective replacement for fossil fuels? What are some health issues that are caused by the vapors from fossil fuels?

Please answer at least some of the questions in the comments below