There is a long history of global pandemic and epidemics, but there is also evidences that all these have been challenged by man, consequently, there were great losses of human lives coupled with social and economic vicissitudes as well. At the same time every major crisis brings opportunities to rethink our systems and make them more strong to future shocks. For example, “health precaution” might sometimes have been in negligence but today, it is a global standard to follow especially in terms of COVID-19. how precaution become the first agenda for life? There is no doubt every organization across the world contributed declaring it an essential social part of every civilization, though it was already there with a significant importance in societies with low level practicing approach. But the question arises in the observance of how and why people accepted and reacted to it in the right directions so swiftly? Is it their fear? Is it a motivation? Is it because of globally managed mass awareness programs that managed people’s willingness or it was a set of combinations of all these phenomenal realities. However, there is an important role of individual and organizations in capacitating public attitude around the world but we cannot ignore other factors that might have been worked but have not come to the fore yet in a scientific profile, however world is waiting for vaccine etc. basically “Precaution” is an approach with the potential for causing harm when scientific knowledge on the matter is lacking and it is applied only where risks are potentially high and not easily calculable, sometimes on certain matters it is ambiguous and an obstacle to progress. I have no choice but to believe with this theory as because the rapid development of science during this epidemic couldn’t come up with a sustainable and affordable solution, Potential for causing harm proved, scientific knowledge on the matter could not conclude the authentic reasons and its cure, life risks proved to be more high, above all, “The Corona epidemic” has devastated the world economically so ruthlessly that there is no hope of any swift move towards a prosperous global life up gradation as a million of employees around the world lost their jobs, increased domestic violence , mass level migrations, and increase in global poverty rate, inflation flame, declining GDP, and above all the irrecoverably wounded education system, industrial lock down and production scarcity coupled with imposing more taxes are the main factors that are seriously addressable.
As a villager I personally observed the period when people were observing the isolation, social distancing and other precautionary measures with extreme spirit, I used to wonder how these people become so sensitive and responsive even though they do not have much education, nor have they had such a recent experience of pandemic before. Although they were not much able to completely understand my interrogations but still they believe that Corona is a fatal virus that chucks lives and the best way to remain safe by staying away of people and sometimes they make some embroidery statements on Corona that might would have made their day good but they still do not compromise on the approach they adopted. If I would try to compare this rural attitude of Gilgit-Baltistan to the attitude of any developed society that have been affected so badly that one only can imagine, again there is a question what else the advanced societies did to combat the COVID-19 so that I would be able to put that as an example for the people who are living on the mountains without books and universities and health facilities, even still they desire for a healthy food and safe water. The only thing that developed underdeveloped and developing nations have been doing are the same thing with the same standards that is only “The Precautions”. The only difference I perceived were the objectives and dynamics which are different as per their Geo political economic scenarios. For instance, in the rural areas there are many dynamics but the main functioning one is its economy. The severity of which was not so greater to them at that time, but at least, the pandemic changed everything; the consumption and production patterns, working habits and forms of mobility etc. However, rural businesses and residents have also been confronted with several pressures, including those emerging from the pandemic and associated defeating practices and geographic structures like larger distances to access food, coupled with limited and sometimes no availability of healthcare staff and facilities definitely affected the ability of rural communities to respond to the pandemic. Moreover, the overall slowdown in aggregate demand and supply has affected some primary sectors and the expected further slowdown in trade has hit the rural economies so severely that created a higher level dependency and put them on a very tight spot. Their agriculture, small scale mining and household enterprises, such as manufacturing of cultural products and especially “The Tourism” are the sectors where the rural communities at the moment are unable to apply value chain activities.
Nevertheless, rural populations of Gilgit-Baltistan have been chiefly vulnerable as because they have a large chunk of population who are at complex risk for severe illness, markedly the elderly and the poor, Irony is that lower incomes and lower savings may have forced rural people to continue to work at any cost for daily livings and even not visit the hospitals when it needed. Health centers that are also unfortunately not well suited for dealing with COVID-19 in such areas because of the nonappearance of ICUs and shortage of doctors. The first immediate challenge facing concerns how to provide essential medical services and testing facilities to rural populations. In addition to this the access to medical equipment in remote places is more limited as the reason with longer carriage times due to greater distances from urban areas and particularly the insufficiently developed infrastructure. In this particular scenario a Govt. owned rural support program mobilized some volunteer groups and took some effective initiatives to cope up with the vulnerability in rural and even urban areas in Gilgit-Baltistan to sensitize people by executing a unique way of communication “THINK CLEAN” developed by a Govt. owned organization with a participatory approach of involving local indigenous groups to keep clean their surroundings from garbage and home leftovers, applying a disinfection sprays all the roads, streets, mosques, banks and other public places, distributed masks, sanitizers, and other respiratory tools to a large number of community organizations and individuals regularly and made sure to follow the global precautionary agenda to keep social distance were the primary communication of the Think Clean Campaign. Another challenge for the community was to deal with camaraderie initiatives in their relationships, as life in rural areas are very much based on love and affection, a continuous counselling by volunteers’ groups, eventually the community acknowledged this the emotions have to be sacrificed to save lives and preferably decided to maintain social distance which was a very difficult decision for them. As a result, less cases have been reported from rural areas while the urban population is still being affected. By no means do I want to convey that the rural population does less need economic development but I would like to develop an utterance that they sacrificed their economic and social development for a great purpose of saving their lives. During the course of my visits to different and far-flung rural areas I always mingled with them, and it happened almost everywhere I felt as if they were making me understand that being precautionary is in line with refusing to take risks. This does not mean that I disagree with them nor these people were presenting any abstract from their own. Rather, they were well informed through media sources available to them, as it was a situation of a large number of concrete cases that were under serious discussion and are still being discussed.
A thought came to my mind while being with rural population was whether the pandemic should have had be interpreted so strongly that all their social and economic assets are now turning out to be the liabilities however, I am more concern to social aspect; or, was there no any other option to legitimize the self and other’s protection that could be similar to the lock down and according to the geographic life style as the smart lock down is contemporary example in our country.At the same time, I do agree with the Idea that that when a potential is assumed to lead to devastation for humans, strategically dealing methods should no doubt be designed to prevent it even if the case and effect relationship is not fully established scientifically,however, no such concrete developments have materialized so far, but still precautionary measures according to this theory were implemented all over the world that made not only the rural but a global attitude towards the general Idea of being rescued from Corona infection was established in the form of a complete lock down and extremely sensitization on social distance while the ground realities were known later, were not the same everywhere.
Anyways, over the medium and long term, rural regions will remain vulnerable with a deepening of the global slowdown. The gap in GDP, productivity levels and service delivery between rural areas and metropolitan cities widened up already during the last global recession 2009-2013, and due to a lower degree diversification in economic activities like export of trade able primary goods and a higher degree dependency on imports this gap will likely be amplified in the coming years. Likewise, the aftermaths and upshots of this crisis may further push rural-related economic sectors, for which the special dynamics of the rural population have to be kept in focus while making long term policies and strategies.
