Essay on the Impact of the Pandemic on the Food Supply Chain

INTRODUCTION

Background information

As of March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) proclaimed the Covid-19 pandemic to be a worldwide pandemic and developed a global strategy for preparation and reaction following that strategy (WHO, 2020a; Vasovagal, 2020). The group has provided information on the outbreak’s origins and probable propagation. COVID-19 is the fifth influenza pandemic since the outbreak of other pandemics, such as the 1918 (H1N1) and 2009 Pandemic flu (H1N1), which killed approximately 50 million people in each of those years (Liu et al., 2020). According to the WHO, the outbreak is a public health emergency that affects all sectors of the economy. As a result, everyone should join the fight against the pandemic, regardless of the industry they are located in. Following the pandemic, the highest cases have been recorded in America, Europe, and Southeast Asia, with Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa recording lower points. The global number of confirmed cases has reached 17,528,223 per million people and 687.64 per million people for linked deaths (WHO 2020b).

The first cases of COVID-19 emerged in Wuhan City’s in China, 2019, according to the reports from (WHO 2020b). The world health organization (WHO) declared the virus a world pandemic with International Concern on January 30, 2020, after assessing the severity of health dangers posed by the virus’s high intensity (Barman, Das, and De,2021). A few months after the virus first appeared on the scene, people began to experience significant worry and anxiety, which hurt their mental health.

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According to the research of Chitrakar, Zhang, and Bhandari (2021), the world health organization (WHO) labelled this virus as a COVID-19 Pandemic on March 11, 2020, after seeing the effect of unanticipated and uncontrolled infection in more than 200,000 cases in 114 countries worldwide (Chin,2020). There has been a constant increase in the number of deaths worldwide to date, with approximately 7.9 million people have tested positive, and the number of infections with COVID-19 continues to climb unabated. As the number of cases rises, so does the demand on the healthcare supply chain for personal protective equipment (PPE), masks, and medications (Chin,2020).

The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic brought global harm to the food supply chain sectors across the globe. The disruptions in the food supply chain have been disrupted in the past due to natural disasters such as the Gujarat earthquake (2001) and the Japan tsunami (2011), which affected the natural ecosystems in the past. In the recent past, we have had a global tragedy due to Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, which has affected human lives and economic activity such as manufacturing and logistics (Ali et al., 2021). The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly influenced the automotive, tourist, aviation, energy, construction, telecommunications, food, and healthcare sectors (Aday,2020).

Due to the current pandemic, governments are working hard to restrict the spread of COVID-19 in their communities. Delays in vaccine development combined with a lack of a clinical cure worsen the problem even further. When a severe infection is present, oxygen therapy is the primary treatment strategy. Treatment is symptomatic while this happens. In respiratory failure, mechanical ventilation may be required to deliver oxygen therapy, and hemodynamic support is critical in treating septic shock (Derossi et al., 2021). With such limited facilities available, meeting the demand becomes tough—especially when a global lockdown occurs.

In March and April of 2020, the lockdown was implemented in several countries to reduce the number of deaths and illnesses, and nearly 2.6 billion people were quarantined at home in the United States and other European countries (Barman, Das, and De,2021). When a lockdown occurs, workers are scarce, and logistical problems lead to supply-side shocks in the food chain. It also results in a sudden increase in the demand for food supply chains on the supply side, owing to panic buying and stockpiling by consumers (Ali et al., 2021). It’s important in the short term to inhibit pathogen growth and restrict local transmission rather than community expansion, and that’s what a lockdown resembles. Therefore, the development of the lockdowns has gravely harmed the economy and is bringing down global commerce. Supply networks and logistics connect many industries, although there were few operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Iyengar et al. (2020), the global supply chain is expected to be affected in the