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Abstract The issue of coronavirus outbreak in the world, though new, is equally pervasive. It has posed a new and ambiguous challenge to the economic growth of countries around the world. Undoubtedly, the efforts of countries to curb the spread of this virus and reduce the number of deaths are necessary for other strategies that will be taken in other areas, especially in the economic field. Comparing countries only based on the statistics on virus spread and mortality without considering the contextual variables, can be misleading. Thus using dynamic data envelopment analysis, this study calculated the performance of 19 selected countries in two dimensions: inefficiency of preventing coronavirus spread and inefficiency of preventing deaths caused by a coronavirus from February 2 to April 12. According to the study, the inefficiency trend of preventing coronavirus spread in Singapore, South Korea, China, and Australia are decreasing during the period under review and the inefficiency trend of other countries, which of course differ in terms of inefficiency, are increasing with different slopes. Also, Australia, Finland, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand have experienced less inefficiency in preventing deaths caused by coronavirus compared to other countries. Stringency index and global health security (GHS) index have been used as well, to analyze the findings and in the end some suggestions have been presented.

Developing artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has become a business of power. AI innovation is increasingly centralized in a few large companies – mainly, Google, Facebook, and Apple.1 Specialized data scientists - the backbone of these institutions - understand how AI functions, further creating a power dynamic between the layperson and the corporatized specialist. In the age of COVID-19, we have all become more reliant on technology companies and innovations to fulfill the needs of our new digital lives. We have little choice but to trust them in developing the AI technologies of the future. non-peer-reviewed

The debate between the US and China about the responsibility for the COVID-19 pandemic raises important questions about the obligations of national governments in the global health care domain. Whereas the US attempts to put the blame on China do not have any serious legal or moral justifications, there is certainly a rationale for the establishment of certain minimal standards in the provision of health care for particular countries. Externalities in the global health care protection are too obvious – costs of underinvestment into the national health care system are borne not only by the country in question, but by the whole world. It is argued that countries should have certain obligations in providing health care services and protecting the population from diseases, especially infectious diseases, similar to the obligations in the framework of the responsibility to protect (R2P) concept that requires countries to protect their citizens from human rights violations. From the point of view of ensuring high life expectancy at a given level of per capita income and spending on health care, China is doing better than many other countries, including the United States that has high per capita income, spends 17% of GDP on health care, but does not provide universal access to health care and lags behind countries with a similar level of economic development in terms of life expectancy (79 years).

The COVID-19 pandemic forced a large number of people into telework. The change of working conditions was not done with the help of specialists or with the support from employers, resulting in improvisations that had negative consequences for employee health. The survey conducted by the Bureau of Social Research at the end of 2020 measured the impact of work from home on various health problems and body organs. The results clearly show a deterioration of the bones, muscles and joints, the mental system, the stomach, the eyes and the heart for an important segment of the employees. The most vulnerable people were those aged 40-60, PhD graduates, domiciled in medium and small cities, employed by the state in areas that had the greatest difficulties in adapting to digitization and working on online platforms: culture, education, public administration. As experts say that working from home will continue in the coming years even after the pandemic disappears, the deterioration of employees' health will intensify.

This study investigated the impact of COVID-19 pandemic uncertainty shock on the macroeconomic stability in Ethiopia in the short run period. The World Pandemic Uncertainty Index (WPUI) was used a proxy variable to measure COVID-19 Uncertainty shock effect. The pandemic effect on core macroeconomic variables like investment, employment, prices (both food & non-food prices), import, export and fiscal policy indicators was estimated and forecasted using Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) Model. The role of fiscal policy in mitigating the shock effect of coronavirus pandemic on macroeconomic stability is also investigated. The finding of the study reveals that the COVID-19 impact lasts at least three years to shake the economy of Ethiopia. Given that the Ethiopian economy heavily relies on import to supply the bulk of its consumption and investment goods, COVID-19 uncertainty effect starts as supply chain shock, whose effect transmitted into the domestic economy via international trade channel. The pandemic uncertainty shock effect is also expected to quickly transcend to destabilize the economy via aggregate demand, food & non-food prices, investment, employment and export shocks. The overall impact of COVID-19 pandemic uncertainty shock impact is interpreted into the economy by resulting under consumption at least in the next three years since 2020. Therefore, the government is expected to enact incentives/policy directions which can boost business confidence. A managed expansionary fiscal policy is found to be key to promote investment, employment and to stabilize food & non-food prices. A particular role of fiscal policy was identified to stabilizing food, transport and communication prices. More importantly, price stabilization policies of the government can have spillover effects in boosting aggregate demand by spurring investments (and widening employment opportunities) in transport/logistics, hotel & restaurant, culture & tourism and export sectors in particular.

The Covid-19 pandemic is going to provoke a huge global crisis in all fields (humanitarian, social, economic). To evaluate its impact is difficult until the pandemic crisis will be stopped or at least its peak will be reached. In order to contribute to such work, we propose in this study a new estimation-simulation model, as an alternative to those models coming from probabilistic, genetic algorithms or other approach. Inspired by classical mechanic dynamics of systems, our model tries to formalize the dynamics of affected population by Covid-19 pandemic. By using a logistic model, in order to find the main characteristics of the system’s dynamics we resort to the first two differentiate function by time for four basic indicators (variables). Essentially for obtaining a solution to estimate the system’s dynamics, we used a balance equation for the variable of active cases, as the difference between the total number of infected and the sum between the number of healed (recovered) and the number of deaths, on the one hand, and the hypothesis that at the end of pandemic this variable must be zero, on the other hand. Because for this key-variable doesn't exist an analytical solution we used a numerical method to obtain some key-values for it. Finally, based on such methodology we classified the Covid-19 pandemic evolution in four phases.

COVID-19 is a novel (new) coronavirus fatal disease caused by SARS-COV-2 (2019-nCoV). The outbreak of this pandemic first has been identified in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China on 1 December 2019, and has spread worldwide very quickly. It is now a major global health threat. After the World War II, the world faces such a major challenge in health sector and economy. The virus is transmitted human-to-human through the respiratory system. From the poor to the rich, infants to old, every people are infected from this virus. The disease spreads in Italy very fast and the north of the country is mostly affected. Lombardy Region is the most infected region in the country. An attempt has been made here to discuss the aspects of infection and deaths due to COVID-19 in Italy.

Potential growth—the rate of expansion an economy can sustain at full capacity and employment—is a critical driver of development progress. It is also a major input in the formulation of fiscal and monetary policies over the business cycle. This paper introduces the most comprehensive database to date, covering the nine most commonly used measures of potential growth for up to 173 countries over 1981-2021. Based on this database, the paper presents three findings. First, all measures of global potential growth show a steady and widespread decline over the past decade, with all the fundamental drivers of growth losing momentum over time. In 2011-21, potential growth was below its 2000-10 average in nearly all advanced economies and roughly 60 percent of emerging market and developing economies. Second, adverse events, such as the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, contributed to the decline. At the country-level also, national recessions lowered potential growth even five years after their onset. Third, the persistent impact of recessions on potential growth operated through weaker growth of investment, employment, and productivity.

This paper examines the pricing of global syndicated loans during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that loan spreads rise by over 11 basis points in response to a one standard deviation increase the lender’s exposure to COVID-19 and over 5 basis points for an equivalent increase in the borrower’s exposure. This renders firms subject to a burden of about USD 5.16 million and USD 2.37 million respectively in additional interest expense for a loan of average size and duration. The aggravating effect of the pandemic is exacerbated with the level of government restrictions to tackle the virus’s spread, with firms’ financial constraints and reliance on debt financing, whereas it is mitigated for relationship borrowers, borrowers listed in multiple exchanges or headquartered in countries that can attract institutional investors.