COVID 19: CONTROVERSIES AND IMPLICATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

Geography as a discipline has been traditionally concerned with issues relating to what is where, how, and why? The concern of geography as a discipline with these issues provides humanity with place-based information vital to healthy living on the planet. As observed in the literature, geography has always been a critical type of information that humans – in fact, all animals – collect, organize, and use, and that place-based information is vital to survival on our planet. The discipline is not only interested in 'what' is 'where', but also in the 'why' and 'how' of 'what' is 'where'. COVID-19,reported in late 2019 in Wuhan, China, has infested millions of people worldwide and caused thousands of deaths within a short period. While several efforts are on to curtail the spread of the pandemic, the origin of this deadly virus remains a subject of controversy. Hitherto, the micro-locational origin of COVID-19 is still being debated among researchers and the general public globally. Unravelling the myth about the exact origin/location of the virus will help in curbing its re-emergence. The paper examines the controversy about the precise origin of coronavirus (COVID-19) and discusses its challenges and implications for the development of the world economy.