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Benchmarking the Devastating Effects of COVID-19 on Economies and Social Life in the EU and In Selected Countries Mostly Affected By the Pandemic

Metin Gürler*,  Özlem Özsoy

Background: Life will not go on same after the pandemic since the countries are negatively affected economically, socially and politically due to coronavirus pandemic so that states, entrepreneurs, consumers and individuals will exhibit different behaviors than they showed before. As the social state raised during the pandemic, governments announced many economic and social packages to prevent both the real sector and their citizens.

Aim: This study aims to investigate the growth rates of confirmed cases and deaths related to COVID-19 in the World, Europian Union and some selected countries mostly influenced by the pandemic, the health indicators for the countries and to analyse the effect of the pandemic on economy, trade and tourism.

Methods: The data for the COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths was gathered from European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) for the world, EU-27, China, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey, UK, USA and was smoothed with Simple Moving Average process to reduce volatility.The daily and cumulative empirical growth rates for COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths were calculated for each country to make comparison by logarithmic scale. The health infrastructure and human resources and the impact of COVID-19 on the economy and foreign trade for the countries are examined.

Results: The number of deaths in Italy, France, Spain, UK and USA which were heavily affected by the pandemic exceeded ten thousand in a couple weeks. In some countries, it was clearly seen that the health system was not sufficient to fight against pandemic. The disruptions in the supply chain of the countries caused their production and external trade to halt and the mobility of goods, services and people in and outside the countries have been minimized due to the pandemic. Both the manufacturing industry and the service sectors have contracted in this process. Flight bans have hit mostly the tourism and transportation sectors so that this will have negative effects on the balance of payments for many countries especially for developing ones disrupting both export and tourism revenues.

Conclusion: COVID-19 not only affected the individual’s daily life but also have influences on social and economic life of the countries. After the outbreak, it is seen that people cannot travel as comfortably as they are used to and that they will maintain social isolation for a while by standing against each other even for their family, relatives and friends. In addition, there will be a big change in production and consumption habits in the economy. It seems that it will take a long time for people to regain their psychology.