The Impact and Implications of COVID-19 on Indigenous Peoples
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The Impact and Implications of COVID-19 on Indigenous Peoples
Introduction
The corona virus disease is one of the deadliest infectious diseases which have severely affected many people across the globe. First reported by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 31 December 2019, in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, the corona virus commonly abbreviated as COVID-19 disease is a severe mild respiratory illness caused by a novel coronavirus (a severe respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) which is transmitted from one person to another through contact with infected people and materials, or through surfaces contaminated by infected individuals. For most individuals, the common signs and symptoms associated with COVID-19 include cough, fever, and shortness of breath, which if not treated progresses to pneumonia, respiratory failure, and finally resulting to death. Considered a global pandemic, various measures and strategies were put in place in order to curb the spread of this pandemic. As the globe respond to the might effects associated with this current health crisis, it is vividly clear that the impacts of COVID-19 indeed are far reaching (Power et al., 2020). Not able to with stand the direct and indirect health effects of the pandemic, the associated social, environmental, and economic effects have significantly affected a vast majority of indigenous communities living in different parts of the world. Bearing this in mind, it is therefore clear that the COVID-19 pandemic has raised key issues for the indigenous people ranging from preparation and planning for the pandemic and consequences of the imposed travel restrictions which all impact logistics, service delivery, and the community at large.
About COVID-19
One of the greatest challenges for the COVID-19 pandemic mitigation and control is that not a lot is known by the medical field regarding the disease and all its implications. It is a fairly new health complication that has not been studied prior to its occurrence. Therefore, doctors and other professionals are learning as they go, a strategy that has a lot of setbacks and implications. Following the directive provided by the World Health Organization, a vast majority of individuals and countries globally have been forced to adopt various strategies aimed at protecting themselves and their loved ones from this dangerous disease. According to the WHO (2019), some of the strategies individuals globally have been forced to adopt include, the wearing of masks, maintenance of a six feet distance from other people, avoidance of large congregations, the washing of hand regularly with water and soap , socializing outdoors, minimizing the touching of eyes, nose and mouth, and avoiding contact with infected individuals. In addition, to minimize the spread of this global pandemic from one country to another, different nations had been to suspend international travel and crossing of borders as another way of establishing safe zones for its individuals. While the crossing of borders and restricting of international travels was being implemented by different countries globally, others also increased these measures by instituting lockdown measures restricting cessation of movement within states, especially to mostly affected areas and night curfews to minimize the cases of outdoor socialization among individuals.
Community Impact of COVID-19
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2019, most communities around the world have incurred significant impacts associated with this pandemic (Power et al., 2020). The traditional and social livelihoods of numerous indigenous communities have been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in more than one way. According to Schleicher (2020), with a percentage of more than 90 percent of the world’s student population being impacted by the COVID-19 measures related to the closure of learning institutions, the world at large is in the verge of the first ever witnessed unprecedented interruption in the education history. One of the significant community impacts of COVID-19 to the Indigenous People is on health. The WHO has focused its COVID-19 measures on preventive strategies, including personal hygiene, quarantine, and social distancing. These efforts may not work for communities that do not operate in conventional and modern structures. Therefore, the result is that a number of people are likely to suffer health consequences including the deterioration of existing healthcare facilities in such communities.
The COVID-19 condition threatens to further worsen the exclusion of indigenous communities’ young persons and children, especially those in rural areas, who in any way cannot access the advanced distance education programs, put in place after the imposition lockdowns due to the limited access to various infrastructures such as electricity and internet connectivity. The impact on education is one that will have far-reaching consequences. Reduced access to education will mean that there will be a generational gap in literacy and ability to advance in learning created by the pandemic on Indigenous communities.
Apart from limited access to education and better health, market closure is another major impact of COVID-19 to most indigenous communities in different parts of the work pandemic (Power et al., 2020). With markets being severely disrupted by the imposition of the COVID-19 related measures and restrictions alongside the impacts on local markets and tourism, fish and livestock markets have been closed preventing fishermen and pastoralists from converting their catch and livestock into cash. This therefore affects the income source for most of these indigenous communities.
Unique Aspects of the Indigenous Communities
The COVID-19 pandemic is posing a great health concern among the indigenous communities in various parts of the world. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic up to date, the indigenous people already experience, inadequate access to essential health care and other key preventive measures such as disinfectants, soap, and clean water. In order to ensure that the services and facilities provided to curb the spread of COVID-19 among the indigenous communities, there is need to include specific need, considerations, and priorities of these indigenous people in order to properly address this global outbreak. For instance, for most indigenous communities around the world, traditional lifestyle is considered a source of their resiliency, but can also pose a concern at this time when imposing measures to curb the spread of COVID-19. Large traditional gathering marked to celebrate special events such as coming of age or harvests involve some of the indigenous communities’ traditions that call for a special need consideration when addressing the COVID-19 outbreak.
Business Impacts
The onset of COVID-19 in December 2019 resulted to a lot of difficulties among the indigenous communities in different parts of the globe. Bearing this in mind, it is important to note theses restrictions also affect the businesses of these people. Most of these indigenous communities are fishermen and pastoralist. By imposing COVID-19 measures, these individuals who depend on suffer due to closure of fish and livestock markets preventing fishermen and pastoralists from converting their catch and livestock into cash. With the closure of markets due to disruption from COVID-19 associated restrictions, a lot of business activities conducted by the indigenous people are as well affected. For instance, lower seafood demand as a result of closure of restaurant reduces the prices and volumes thus affecting indigenous people businesses. In addition, due to COVID-19, numerous companies owned and operated by indigenous communities in different parts of the world have been closed or restricted to operate on reduced hours. Bearing these challenges, even those businesses managing to open face reduced sales due low demands of goods and services and as a impacting their operations. With regard to their day to day business activities, it accurate to note that indigenous communities engage in diverse business operation, but the fishing, agriculture, manufacturing, restaurant, and livestock sectors are some of the most affected business sectors.
Major global business industries are also some of the major entities that have not been able to withstand the impacts of COVID-19. In regard the to the business industry, most of the indigenous communities in different parts of the globe have been known to engage themselves in different business industries. According to Carr (2020), the tourism industry is one of the most common industries indigenous communities tend to be involved in various activities such as entertainment and selling on their indigenous artifacts to tourists. However, following the implementation of travel restrictions in various parts of the world as a mean to curb the spread of COVID-19, the tourism industry has been hit the most and as a result affecting also the indigenous communities (Carr, 2020). For instance, the closure of provisional and international borders and the closure of large cruise ships season will have a huge significant challenge and effect on the Atlantic indigenous community tourism revenues, which in 2017 totaled to approximately $225 million.
Apart from tourism, the fishing industry is another major common industry indigenous communities tend to be involved in. engaging in the sale of fish in order to raise finances for the day to day spending is common practice of indigenous communities (Love et al., 2021). However, there are various impacts of COVID-19 that affect fisheries activities involving indigenous communities. Fish and fish products are highly dependent on the international market. With the imposition of trade restrictions, these businesses suffered quite early as a result of closure of some of their most important markets. While these restrictions resulted to the closure of international markets, the processing sectors also faced closure due to decreased demand from consumers. This significantly appeared to be a challenge especially among women who relied of these post-harvest sectors for work and monthly salaries.
Economies Discrepancies
Over the past decade, major progress has been witnessed in an effort to curb the economic gap between indigenous people and non-indigenous people (Mitrou et al., 2014). In many parts around the world, indigenous communities experience higher rates poverty, poor health, poor die, and other major social problems. These disparities facing indigenous people are found in almost every indigenous community in most countries including some of the wealthiest nations. The narrowing of this economic gap has been a focus and aim of many successive governments in different nations. While this is a continuance progress for some of the nations, other wealthy nations such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have completely under-resourced the process of human development for indigenous communities in their countries, indicating that indeed there are differences across different countries in terms of the discrepancies (Mitrou et al., 2014). Bearing this in mind, it is therefore clear that despite the efforts of a few governments the issues of economic discrepancies between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples will continue going on for a long time as it has already. If closing the economic gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples is a continuing goal, then there is need to establish new approaches in order to achieve success otherwise, a future of inequality is predicted for the indigenous communities.
According to Mitrou et al. (2014), the existence of discrepancies between indigenous people and non-indigenous people is as result of various reasons such as the lack of a common goal by all governments to strive towards reducing this gap. In this case, it is only a few successful governments that engage in this issue while having no success due to lack of support from other governments. In order to bring to an end the issue of discrepancies between the indigenous people and non-indigenous people, certain contributing factors such as poor health, high mortality rates, lower levels of employment and education need to be addressed. In so doing, individuals will be able to fend themselves and as result reducing these discrepancies. In regard to COVID-19, it is imperative to note that is in fact a major contributing factor of this gap as well. Since the onset of COVID-19, cases of high mortality rates, unemployment, closure of schools have all occurred thereby indicating that the continued establishment of the gap between indigenous people and non-indigenous people.
Conclusion
In summary, COVID-19 is one of the deadliest infectious diseases which have severely affected many people across the globe. Impacting the health, economic, social, and businesses of many individuals, COVID-19 has indeed increased the long existing gap between gap between indigenous people and non-indigenous people. Therefore in order to reduce these discrepancies, there is need for all governments to come together and adopt new approaches in order to deal with this issue. COVID-19 is a dangerous pandemic which if not dealt with in unison can cause further discrepancies between people and nations.
References
Carr, Anna. 2020. “COVID-19, indigenous peoples and tourism: a view from New
Zealand.” Tourism Geographies 22(3): 491-502. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2020.1768433 Love, David C., Edward H. Allison, Frank Asche, Ben Belton, Richard S. Cottrell, Halley E.
Froehlich, Jessica A. Gephart et al. 2021. “Emerging COVID-19 impacts, responses, and lessons for building resilience in the seafood system.” Global Food Security 100494. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2021.100494 Mitrou, Francis, Martin Cooke, David Lawrence, David Povah, Elena Mobilia, Eric Guimond,
and Stephen R. Zubrick. “Gaps in Indigenous disadvantage not closing: a census cohort study of social determinants of health in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand from 1981–2006.” BMC Public Health 14, no. 1 (2014): 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-14-201 Power, Tamara, Denise Wilson, Odette Best, Teresa Brockie, Lisa Bourque Bearskin, Eugenia
Millender, and John Lowe. 2020. “COVID‐19 and Indigenous Peoples: An imperative for action.” 2737-2741. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.15320 Schleicher, A. (2020). The impact of covid-19 on education insights from education at a glance
2020. Retrieved from https://www.oecd.org/education/the-impact-of-covid-19-on-education-insights-education-at-a-glance-2020.pdf
World Health Organization (2021). COVID-19 Emergency. Available at;
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019?
