EXPLORATION OF COVID-19 AND ITS IMPACT ON SUSTAINABILITY OF SMALL AND MEDIUM SCALE BUSINESS ON NIGERIA
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EXPLORATION OF COVID-19 AND ITS IMPACT ON SUSTAINABILITY OF SMALL AND MEDIUM SCALE BUSINESS ON NIGERIA
Chapter one
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Since time immemorial, regions and continents have remained relatively separated, with trade and the ambition to conquer other regions serving as the primary drivers of interaction and racial mixing.
However, as a result of technical improvement, technological divide, globalisation, and tourism, the degree of migration between nations has increased, and the national geographical boundaries of countries throughout the world have become porous.
This porosity has allowed inventions and global ideas to spread across continents, as well as diseases and infections from a single community outbreak to a global epidemic and pandemic.
The Spanish influenza was the first and most severe epidemic outbreak to strike the entire planet. Between 1918 and 1919, an estimated one-third of the world’s population (500 million people) became infected and developed clinically evident disease.
Recent research has revealed that the lethal influenza was not of Spanish origin; rather, it is believed that the virus evolved in “Etaples,” an immense military staging camp in Northern France where at any given time, no fewer than 100,000 men might be found in close contact to both swine and poultry.
This lethal type of flu struck in March 1918 in the United States’ military training camps, where soldiers were awaiting shipping to Europe for the war.
The infection began in Camp Funston in Kansas and spread to other camps before reaching Europe via military ships. Over the course of three months, 43.000 American soldiers succumbed to the sickness.
Most flu types do not kill humans directly; rather, bacteria infect the victim’s lungs, causing death. However, the Spanish flu, which spread from 1918 to 1919, was a direct killer. Victims experienced acute cyanosis, a blue staining of their skin and mucosal membranes.
They vomited and coughed up blood, which then gushed freely out their noses and, in the case of women, from their genitals. The biggest death toll was among pregnant women, with up to 71% of those infected dying.
If the woman lived, the foetus almost always died. Many young kids had encephalitis when the virus attacked their brains and spinal cords.
And millions more people suffered from acute respiratory distress syndrome, an immunological illness in which disease-fighting cells overload the lungs in their struggle against invaders, causing the lung cells to become collateral damage and the sufferers to choke.
The deadly virus Spanish Influenza was introduced to Nigeria by S. S. Bida, a merchant from the Gold Coast (now Ghana), and his passengers and staff who arrived by ship from overseas.
Thus, coastal ports were the principal sites of disease spread. Its spread to the hinterland was aided by advances in transport technology. Neither marine quarantine nor patient isolation prevented the disease’s spread.
Over 500 thousand Nigerians killed between September 14th, when the outbreak was first reported, and mid-1919, when it was lost to history.
Several other viral outbreaks have decimated Nigeria’s main cities and states, including the bubonic plague, small pox, cholera, dengue, novel strand of influenza, SARS, HIV/AIDS, Ebola, and the novel coronavirus.
The unique strain of coronavirus is a highly contagious disease, and the World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared it a global public health emergency (Wang et al., 2021).
It began in late December 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei Province, People’s Republic of China (PRC), with the news of one unidentified pneumonia case (Huanget al., 2021).
PRC Centres for Disease Control (CDC) scientists identified pneumonia as novel coronavirus pneumonia (NCP) caused by a novel coronavirus, and WHO formally called the disease COVID-19 (Huang et al., 2021).
The virus, however, was called SARS-CoV-2 by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV). This β-coronavirus can infect a variety of natural, intermediate, and ultimate hosts.
Covid-19, as designated by the WHO index case in Nigeria, was discovered on February 27, 2021, when an Italian man in Lagos tested positive for the virus caused by SARS-CoV-2.
On March 9, 2021, a second incidence of the virus was recorded in Ewekoro, Ogun State, involving a Nigerian individual who had contact with an Italian citizen.
The infectious disease, which has a fatality rate ranging from 2% to 5% in different geographical places and a recovery rate of more than 90%, spread rapidly throughout Nigeria’s several states.
Currently, there are about 76,207 confirmed cases, 67110 discharges, and 1201 deaths. The virus is found in 35 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
On March 11, 2021, the World Health Organisation proclaimed COVID-19 a global epidemic. To prevent the spread of the epidemic, many governments throughout the world implemented national lockdown measures, resulting in a significant drop in global economic activity.
Globally, several areas of national industries experienced major reductions in production, decreased demand, and job losses. Small enterprises are distinguished by their remarkable flexibility, proclivity for entrepreneurial endeavours, lower production quantities, straightforward organisational structure, and informal internal communication (Lazarevic-Moravcevic, 2019, p.106).
They are, however, more vulnerable during economic crises. The early information suggests that the COVID-19 epidemic will have a worse impact on SMEs than the 2008 financial crisis. Given that SMEs drive economies.
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