The COVID-19 Pandemic as a Globally Shared Experience: An Introduction

S. Niggol Seo

Chapter Chapter 1 in The Economics of Pandemics, 2022, pp 1-44 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This chapter provides an introduction to the COVID-19 pandemic and the book. The pandemic overwhelmed the global community in 2020 and 2021. The COVID-19 was first reported from Wuhan, China, but the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has not yet been determined. By early July 2021, the number of fatalities surpassed 4 million people worldwide and the number of cases near 200 million. National lockdowns, ordered business closures, governmental mandates, school closures, and street riots are some of the humanitarian costs caused by the pandemic. A sharp drop in economic production and a sudden spike in the unemployment rate tell one side of the economic hardship, while a series of government’s relief cash payments to all citizens tell the other side. With the COVID-19 in the background, this book elucidates the economics of pandemics as a globally shared experience built on the foundation of the critical analyses of the five dimensions of the pandemics: global governance such as the World Health Organization, governmental responses and policies, radical social transformation movements, a doomsday scenario such as a climate catastrophe, and vaccine science and economics. The COVID-19 pandemic is still mysterious with regard to several key aspects, which will be highlighted in this book.

Keywords: Pandemic; COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; Fatalities; Economic costs; Humanitarian costs; World health organization; Radical social transformations; Doomsday scenarios; Governmental policies; Vaccines (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-91021-1_1

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