How COVID-19 Has Changed Various Aspects of Social Life

COVID-19

Over the past year, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has managed to change people’s lifestyles to such an extent that life itself would no longer go back to the previous patterns. People from all over the world are now doing their best in terms of adjusting their social and economic behavior to the reality of the global healthcare catastrophe. Hence, the primary purpose of the following paper is to examine how the virus managed to change various aspects of social life, including politics, healthcare, and individual habits, using the examples of relevant scholarly data.

Political Climate

For decades, the notion of collaboration has been defined as the process of bringing together people and nations to achieve common goals. However, it is the global pandemic that served as a full-scale catalyst for the development of such relationship patterns. One of the brightest examples of major change in terms of political collaboration on the global level is the current cooperation between the US and China, whose communication was not considered beneficial in the diachronic paradigm. Hence, according to the researchers, the collaboration between the states during the pandemic was five times higher than their usual pattern of communication (Lee & Haupt, 2020). As a result, the political climate on both global and national levels tends to gradually increase during COVID-19.

Legal Implications

The COVID-19 outbreak has inevitably resulted in various legal case filings related to financial concerns, unemployment, and healthcare access. Speaking of the latter, one of the most challenging aspects in terms of pandemic litigation processes is related to the healthcare providers’ inability to secure the well-being of the residents of long-term care facilities due to lack of resources or plain negligence. A prime example of such litigation is a class action lawsuit Shiadach v. Walsh et al. (2020), the plaintiffs of which claim the administration of the Massachusetts soldiers’ home failed in the process of preventing residents from COVID-19 leading to the death of 76 veterans. Although the following case has not been resolved yet, it would be safe to assume that a variety of similar lawsuits primarily emerged due to the lack of preparedness for such rapid outbreak rates.

Policy

One of the major challenges now related to the social security of people all over the world is the issue of financial struggle caused by rapid unemployment and lack of social support. Hence, to keep the economy functioning within the state, the US Senate decided to create a policy called “US Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security” (CARES’ Act) to provide fellow residents with financial aid, including families, small businesses, and non-profit organizations (The White House, 2020). The implications of such policy are evident at present, as the money allocated to the relief supply is now contributing to the state economy’s recovery after the outbreak peak.

Interprofessional Healthcare

The modern picture of combating the COVID-19 pandemic could not have been achieved without the explicit intervention of healthcare professionals from all over the world. Thus, the notion of interprofessional collaboration in the following context may be regarded from two major perspectives: the first is related to international collaboration, and the other concerns cooperation between various healthcare disciplines.

According to the researchers, the following pandemic catalyzes the development of both these perspectives, especially when it comes to the process of developing a vaccine (e.g., an international collaboration between pharmacists and scholars from German company Phizer and the US) (Sy et al., 2020). The three major disciplines that should be then engaged in the following type of cooperation concerns epidemiologists, pharmacists, and general practitioners for the sake of relevant information exchange.

Nursing Implications

Nurses have always served as major intermediates between the healthcare administration and patients, so the COVID-19 outbreak has inevitably become dependent on the nurses’ ability to handle the situation directly in the facility. Hence, according to scholars, the three most significant roles of nurses include organizational support, personal resilience, and social support (Labrague & De Los Santos, 2020).

Since all these aspects take a toll on the mental condition of nurses, they feel a high level of anxiety and lack of support expressed by both society and practitioners. Moreover, in the context of the aforementioned roles, nurses have a variety of duties encompassing communication with patients, developing a care plan, patient supervision, medical equipment management, and preventive healthcare promotion. Hence, it may be concluded that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of nurses has been significantly expanded, creating an extremely stressful and insecure environment for the employees.

Reflection

The modern reality shaped by the COVID-19 outbreak has changed the patterns of everyone’s lifestyle and perception of life in general, making people reconsider their attitude to professional development and health. Hence, when dwelling upon my personal experience, the following aspects of life that were modified or adjusted may be outlined:

• The value of professional and interpersonal communication.
• The demand for rapid adjustment to virtual reality.
• The need to create an agile framework of skills to remain relevant in times of emergency.
• The value of interprofessional communication for the sake of a successful outcome.
• The overall perception of life in the context of globalization.

References

Labrague, L. J., & De Los Santos, J. A. A. (2020). COVID‐19 anxiety among front‐line nurses: Predictive role of organisational support, personal resilience and social support. Journal of nursing management, 28(7), 1653-1661.

Lee, J. J., & Haupt, J. P. (2020). Scientific collaboration on COVID-19 amidst geopolitical tensions between the US and China. The Journal of Higher Education, 1-27.

Sniadach v. Walsh et al., 2020 3:2020cv30115.

Sy, M., O’Leary, N., Nagraj, S., El-Awaisi, A., O’Carroll, V., & Xyrichis, A. (2020). Doing interprofessional research in the COVID-19 era: a discussion paper. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 34(5), 600-606.

The White House. (2020). President Donald J. Trump is providing economic relief to American workers, families, and businesses impacted by the Coronavirus. Web.