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INSTITUTION : UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI

COLLEGE. : HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

SCHOOL. : FACULTY OF ARTS

DEPARTMENT. : DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY

COURSE. : INTRODUCTION TO ANTHROPOLOGY

INSTRUCTOR. :DR.JOSEPH KABIRU

TASK. : ASSIGNMENT

STUDENT NAME. : MWAMISI DORCAS NDANU

REGISTRATION NUMBER:C01/0360/2019

SUBMISSION DATE. : 13thAugust2020

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ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic is considered as the most crucial global health calamity of 5he century

and the greatest challenge that the humankind faced since the 2nd World War.Back in December,a

new infections respiratory disease emarged in Wuhan,Hubei province China and was named by

the World Health Organisation as COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019).A new class of

coronavirus known as SARS-COV-2 (severe acute respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2)has been

found to be responsible occurrence of this disease.This pape describes the impact of COVID-19

on culture of the society.

INTRODUCTION

The COVID-19 is threatening to overwhelm culture and is having devastating impacts across the

world.Ten it thousands of lives have already been lost, including those of doctors and nurses

providing front line medical treatment.This has brought many institutions being closed and

events being suspended or postponed.

ART GALLERIES

Some art galleries rely on both funding and paintings being sold.In order to remain open.With

people self isolated because of COVID-19,this cause a reduction in the number of any ticket
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sales,art sales or people attending associated events which might have brought in much needed

cash.

We have seen high profile art galleries and museums shutter their doors in recent days including

the Wellcome Trust.the V and A and the Tate galleries.

WRITING AT RISK

It’s well known that literary festivals are a vital source of income for authors across the globe.Yet

book festivals and fairs have suspension across-the-board.This year’s writing festivals such as

Oxford Literary Festival has been cancelled along with other main writing festivals across the

world.This puts writing at high risk because if the pandemic will not end soon some main

festivals might be suspended for a long time and due to lack this such festivals may be

considered as not useful after the pandemic ends.

SUSPENSION OF LARGE SCALE GATHERINGS

In our country Kenya the government banned all forms of public gatherings.This included

markets, churches, schools and even political gatherings.This has brought the culture of society

so down because people use named institutions to practice their such as worshiping in Churches

other learning in schools.Due to this ban,we have seen schools and churches being closed for

unknown period due to the outbreak of COVID-19.Many people in the world have chosen to self

isolate or to avoid large scale gatherings.This has led to many events being cancelled or

postponed.
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MUSICAL AND CINEMA DELAYS

Major concerts and festivals such as Glastonbury have been cancelled due to the outbreak.In

South Korea K-kop concerts have been delayed while country to country, which is normally held

in three separate locations (London, Glasgow and Dublin)has been.

In the field of movie and cinema The Chinese premiere of the new Bond film 'No Time To Die

was cancelled due to pandemic along with the planned accompanying red-carpet tour.The

uncertainty of how long it will take to contain the virus has been a huge knockback to the film

industry.It is true that these are big-budget films having the backing of film studios and access to

large amounts but when the investment in a film isn’t recouped 8n tickets sales,this can quickly

affect the budget for further productions.

Again some musicians and composers were able to use this time of pandemic to create new

works,there were flow on effects on the many supporting people who relied on performers for

their income and several album release were delayed as well.

In response to cope with this situation there are intensive efforts to provide alternative or

additional services through digital platforms to maintain the essential activities with minimal

resources to document events themselves through new acquisition and simultaneously an

awareness that there would be many new creative works which has been inspired by the event.

LIBRARIES AND ARCHIVES

The institute of Museums and Libraries Services noted that the risk of coronavirus transmission

from paper was low,this has made libraries and archives to face different situation from

maintaining full service with some restrictions through providing minimal services to complete
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closure.Therefore International Federation of Library Association noted that some libraries has

imposed a wait period before handling returned books while others have made it clear that

no-one is expected to return borrowed books until things return to normal.Many public libraries

cancelled programs which would see people spend longer period together.Other closed public

reading rooms or only allowed people to collect requested books on appointment with a

drive-through or proving service to especially vulnerable community groups.Meanwhile the

Kenya National Library Service computer lab has been converted to become the Taita Taveta

County data entry and analysis center for COVID-19 tests.

CULTURE CHANGE AND ADAPTATION

Facing atleast several weeks of closure of their buildings and public accessible spaces directors

noted several immediate trends emerging.The simultaneously closure of the cultural sector and

home isolation of much of the public led to a highlighted desire for people to obtain access to

and take comfort from culture right at the moment when it was least accessible to them.

Many cultural sector organisations and individuals artists turned to providing online activities

from social media to virtual reality as a way to continue fulfilling their organisational missions

and obtain or retain an audiences.

TRAVELING RESTRICTIONS

Due to the pandemic many countries have come up with restrictions and bans to control

movements of people within the country.Starting with Kenya,the government gave out strict

measures on the field of transport where buses were allowed to carry not more than 30

passengers while matatus were allowed to carry a certain maximum number of passengers
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depending on the seats they have.The owners of these public vehicles in response they increase

the fare thus affecting the movement of people from one society to another due to high cost of

traveling.In relation to culture this affected the society in a way that some cultural events are

done outside one community and people have to travel from their community to attend that

cultural event taking place.With these restrictions the cost of traveling from one community to

another will be very high and people my call off the event or postpone because many of the

people will not be able to attend.

Tourism

On the field of air travel restrictions were also impose.Total bans for all travel in the world has

affected culture of society which depends on tourist to grow their economy.Due to the sudden

collapse in international travel the wildlife tourism sector risks the potential starvation of the

animals.For example as a consequence of the lack of tourists paying for food more than 1000

elephants in Thailand risk starvation.In countries wildlife tourism represent a nice significant

portion of employment.Like in Tanzania and Namibia,there is concern that a loss of jobs related

to conservation will see a rise in poaching while animals in wildlife reserves began roaming into

areas recently vacated by tourists.

GENDER INEQUALITY

The COVID-19 pandemic is also threatens to deepen gender inequality as the burden of caring

for children at home and sick or older family members fails disproportionately on women, given

the still deeply embedded gender stereotypes and roles in many societies.In circumstances where
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families are in lockdown or quarantine women may be additionally vulnerable to domestic and

limited recourse in those circumstances.

AQUARIUM AND ZOOS

RESULTS

Covid-19 pandemic has brought many negative impacts to the society’s culture.It has led the way

of living of people to change and adapt other measures so as to cope with the impacts brought

about by COVID-19 pandemic.As discussed above the culture of the society has changed so

much because some of the cultural practices have been delayed.Here the results are that the

culture we had before the pandemic hit the world have changed totally and people now are living

practicing other forms of culture related to the former one so as to protect their culture which is

in danger of being lost.

CONCLUSION

As COVID-19 pandemic is continuing to threaten the culture of society people are adapting

some other cultures so as to cope with damage caused by the pandemic.Here people try to copy

other people culture which is becoming so hard to copy and hence this makes people incur a lot

of cost to meet the culture practice they want to copy.Here comes the question for how will this

pandemic will live in the society?and if it does not end what will people in the society do so as to

forget the negative impacts brought by the pandemic?

REFERENCES
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health-A strategy for resilience in a changing arctic

2.OECD Interim Economic Assessment,2020,OECD Interim Economic Assessment,

Coronavirus: the world culture at risk.

3.Fan et al;2019 Y Fan K. Zhao,Z.L.Shi,et Al Bat coronavirus in China.Viruses,11(2019),p.210

4. Afelt,A Fritos,R,Devaux,C.2018.Bats, coronavirus and deforestation towards the emergence

of novel infections diseases? Front,Microbiol9,702

5. Wang,C Horby P w Hayden F.G,Gap,G,F,2020b A novel coronavirus outbreak of global

health concern.
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