LOCAL AND GLOBAL PERCEPTIONS AND MEANINGS OF COVID-19

Abstract

The outbreak of a strain of coronavirus in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 was initially a local issue. However, the. rapid spread of the disease in Hubei Province soon alerted the Chinese government to an epidemic and prompted it to share its concern with the world. By 11th January 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) had publicised the scientific nomenclature of the virus outbreak, COVID-19, and by January 2020, the epidemic was pronounced a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. The relentless spread of the virus, which met the essential criteria of an infectious disease transmitted from one human to another across a large geographic area and affecting a significant number of the world's population, forced the WHO to declare COVID-19 a pandemic on 11th March 2020. Since the disease's declaration as a pandemic and the moral panic it sparked worldwide, there was confusion over its scientific, spiritual, and social meanings. In this chapter, we examine Africa's and global perspectives on COVID-19 and their implications for individuals and the societies in which they live and function. Within post-. structuralism and postmodemity, we examine how meanings are attached to the virus and how its interpretation influences behaviour, especially within governments' extreme measures to curtail the virus outbreak in Nigeria and worldwide. We also examine how COVID-19, as a health symbol, assumes different shades of meaning as individuals perceive risk across different socio-cultural, spiritual, and political contexts.