Impact Of Covid-19 On Asian Economies And Policy Responses


Book Description

On March 12th 2020, World Health Organization (WHO) declared the spreading of the new virus, 2019-nCoV, a pandemic. In Asia, the virus, more commonly referred to as COVID-19, has been spreading since the end of December. To contain the public health threat, almost all countries enforced a variety of measures, including lockdowns, to minimize face-to-face human interactions between the infected and the susceptible.While these vigilant measures save lives, they also generate a substantial negative economic shock that immediately halts demand and significantly disrupts supply, global production value chain and trade. The consequences are dire — considerable decline in output, massive surge in unemployment, countless bankruptcy cases, and unrelentless worries over financial stability. The result, a worldwide economic setback, is more severe than that experienced during the Great Financial Crisis of 2008-2009.Asia's experiences with COVID-19 precede that in the West. This fortuitous timing allows Asia to share its learnings drawn from experiences to benefit the world.The Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research's (ABFER) community has gathered a collection of insights to inform the public. Besides providing access to research on the pandemic conducted in Asia, these commentaries offer comprehensive information on the effects of the pandemic, the effectiveness of measures employed to contain it and the subsequent economic impacts from such implementation. With granular analyses of government policies and their associated economic rescue packages, these commentaries elucidate the hard trade-offs between public health protection and economic security. Finally, the commentaries address the broader impact of the pandemic on international trade, global value chains and society.




The Impact of Covid-19 on Prison Conditions and Penal Policy


Book Description

The Impact of COVID-19 on Prison Conditions and Penal Policy presents the results of a worldwide exchange of information on the impact of COVID-19 in prisons. It also focuses on the human rights questions that have been raised during the pandemic, relating to the treatment of prisoners in institutions for both juveniles and adults worldwide. The first part brings together the findings and conclusions of leading prison academics and practitioners, presenting national reports with information on the prison system, prison population rates, how COVID-19 was and is managed in prisons, and its impact on living conditions inside prisons and on reintegration programmes. Forty-four countries are covered – many in Europe, but also Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Perú, Costa Rica, Canada, the USA, Kenya, South Africa, China, India, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. In the second part, thematic chapters concentrate explicitly on the impact of the pandemic on the application of international human rights standards in prisons and on worldwide prison population rates. The book concludes by drawing out the commonalities and diverging practices between jurisdictions, discussing the impact of measures introduced and reflecting on what could be learnt from policies that emerged during the pandemic. Particular attention is paid to whether "reductionist" strategies that emerged during the pandemic can be used to counteract mass incarceration and prison overcrowding in the future. Although the book reflects the situation until mid 2021, after the second and during the third wave of the pandemic, it is highly relevant to the current situation, as the living conditions in prisons did not change significantly during the following waves, which showed high infection rates (in particular in the general population), but increased vaccination rates, too. In prisons, problems the pandemic raises have an even greater impact than for the general society. Revealing many notable and interesting changes in prison life and in release programmes, this book is essential reading for students and scholars of penology, criminology, law, sociology and public health. It will also appeal to criminal justice practitioners and policy makers.




COVID-19 and World Order


Book Description

Leading global experts, brought together by Johns Hopkins University, discuss national and international trends in a post-COVID-19 world. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has killed hundreds of thousands of people and infected millions while also devastating the world economy. The consequences of the pandemic, however, go much further: they threaten the fabric of national and international politics around the world. As Henry Kissinger warned, "The coronavirus epidemic will forever alter the world order." What will be the consequences of the pandemic, and what will a post-COVID world order look like? No institution is better suited to address these issues than Johns Hopkins University, which has convened experts from within and outside of the university to discuss world order after COVID-19. In a series of essays, international experts in public health and medicine, economics, international security, technology, ethics, democracy, and governance imagine a bold new vision for our future. Essayists include: Graham Allison, Anne Applebaum, Philip Bobbitt, Hal Brands, Elizabeth Economy, Jessica Fanzo, Henry Farrell, Peter Feaver, Niall Ferguson, Christine Fox , Jeremy A. Greene, Hahrie Han, Kathleen H. Hicks, William Inboden, Tom Inglesby, Jeffrey P. Kahn, John Lipsky, Margaret MacMillan, Anna C. Mastroianni, Lainie Rutkow, Kori Schake, Eric Schmidt, Thayer Scott, Benn Steil, Janice Gross Stein, James B. Steinberg, Johannes Urpelainen, Dora Vargha, Sridhar Venkatapuram, and Thomas Wright. In collaboration with and appreciation of the book's co-editors, Professors Hal Brands and Francis J. Gavin of the Johns Hopkins SAIS Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, Johns Hopkins University Press is pleased to donate funds to the Maryland Food Bank, in support of the university's food distribution efforts in East Baltimore during this period of food insecurity due to COVID-19 pandemic hardships.




Primary and Secondary Education During Covid-19


Book Description

This open access edited volume is a comparative effort to discern the short-term educational impact of the covid-19 pandemic on students, teachers and systems in Brazil, Chile, Finland, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. One of the first academic comparative studies of the educational impact of the pandemic, the book explains how the interruption of in person instruction and the variable efficacy of alternative forms of education caused learning loss and disengagement with learning, especially for disadvantaged students. Other direct and indirect impacts of the pandemic diminished the ability of families to support children and youth in their education. For students, as well as for teachers and school staff, these included the economic shocks experienced by families, in some cases leading to food insecurity and in many more causing stress and anxiety and impacting mental health. Opportunity to learn was also diminished by the shocks and trauma experienced by those with a close relative infected by the virus, and by the constrains on learning resulting from students having to learn at home, where the demands of schoolwork had to be negotiated with other family necessities, often sharing limited space. Furthermore, the prolonged stress caused by the uncertainty over the resolution of the pandemic and resulting from the knowledge that anyone could be infected and potentially lose their lives, created a traumatic context for many that undermined the necessary focus and dedication to schoolwork. These individual effects were reinforced by community effects, particularly for students and teachers living in communities where the multifaceted negative impacts resulting from the pandemic were pervasive. This is an open access book.




The COVID-19 Catastrophe


Book Description

The global response to the COVID-19 pandemic is the greatest science policy failure in a generation. We knew this was coming. Warnings about the threat of a new pandemic have been made repeatedly since the 1980s and it was clear in January that a dangerous new virus was causing a devastating human tragedy in China. And yet the world ignored the warnings. Why? In this short and hard-hitting book, Richard Horton, editor of the medical journal The Lancet, scrutinizes the actions that governments around the world took – and failed to take – as the virus spread from its origins in Wuhan to the global pandemic that it is today. He shows that many Western governments and their scientific advisors made assumptions about the virus and its lethality that turned out to be mistaken. Valuable time was lost while the virus spread unchecked, leaving health systems unprepared for the avalanche of infections that followed. Drawing on his own scientific and medical expertise, Horton outlines the measures that need to be put in place, at both national and international levels, to prevent this kind of catastrophe from happening again. Were supposed to be living in an era where human beings have become the dominant influence on the environment, but COVID-19 has revealed the fragility of our societies and the speed with which our systems can come crashing down. We need to learn the lessons of this pandemic and we need to learn them fast because the next pandemic may arrive sooner than we think.




Sport and the Pandemic


Book Description

This book takes a close look at how the sport industry has been impacted by the global Coronavirus pandemic, as entire seasons have been cut short, events have been cancelled, athletes have been infected, and sport studies programs have moved online. Crucially, the book also asks how the industry might move forward. With contributions from sport studies researchers across the world, the book offers commentaries, cases, and informed analysis across a wide range of topics and practical areas within sport business and management, from crisis communication and marketing to event management and finance. While Covid-19 will inevitably cast a long shadow over sport for years to come, and although the situation is fast-evolving and the future is uncertain, this book offers some important early perspectives and reflections that will inform debate and influence policy and practice. A timely addition to the body of knowledge regarding the pandemic, this is an important resource for researchers, students, practitioners, the media, policy-makers, and anybody who cares about the future of sport.




Global Productivity


Book Description

The COVID-19 pandemic struck the global economy after a decade that featured a broad-based slowdown in productivity growth. Global Productivity: Trends, Drivers, and Policies presents the first comprehensive analysis of the evolution and drivers of productivity growth, examines the effects of COVID-19 on productivity, and discusses a wide range of policies needed to rekindle productivity growth. The book also provides a far-reaching data set of multiple measures of productivity for up to 164 advanced economies and emerging market and developing economies, and it introduces a new sectoral database of productivity. The World Bank has created an extraordinary book on productivity, covering a large group of countries and using a wide variety of data sources. There is an emphasis on emerging and developing economies, whereas the prior literature has concentrated on developed economies. The book seeks to understand growth patterns and quantify the role of (among other things) the reallocation of factors, technological change, and the impact of natural disasters, including the COVID-19 pandemic. This book is must-reading for specialists in emerging economies but also provides deep insights for anyone interested in economic growth and productivity. Martin Neil Baily Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution Former Chair, U.S. President’s Council of Economic Advisers This is an important book at a critical time. As the book notes, global productivity growth had already been slowing prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and collapses with the pandemic. If we want an effective recovery, we have to understand what was driving these long-run trends. The book presents a novel global approach to examining the levels, growth rates, and drivers of productivity growth. For anyone wanting to understand or influence productivity growth, this is an essential read. Nicholas Bloom William D. Eberle Professor of Economics, Stanford University The COVID-19 pandemic hit a global economy that was already struggling with an adverse pre-existing condition—slow productivity growth. This extraordinarily valuable and timely book brings considerable new evidence that shows the broad-based, long-standing nature of the slowdown. It is comprehensive, with an exceptional focus on emerging market and developing economies. Importantly, it shows how severe disasters (of which COVID-19 is just the latest) typically harm productivity. There are no silver bullets, but the book suggests sensible strategies to improve growth prospects. John Fernald Schroders Chaired Professor of European Competitiveness and Reform and Professor of Economics, INSEAD




Reopening K-12 Schools During the COVID-19 Pandemic


Book Description

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented unprecedented challenges to the nation's K-12 education system. The rush to slow the spread of the virus led to closures of schools across the country, with little time to ensure continuity of instruction or to create a framework for deciding when and how to reopen schools. States, districts, and schools are now grappling with the complex and high-stakes questions of whether to reopen school buildings and how to operate them safely if they do reopen. These decisions need to be informed by the most up-to-date evidence about the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19; about the impacts of school closures on students and families; and about the complexities of operating school buildings as the pandemic persists. Reopening K-12 Schools During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Prioritizing Health, Equity, and Communities provides guidance on the reopening and operation of elementary and secondary schools for the 2020-2021 school year. The recommendations of this report are designed to help districts and schools successfully navigate the complex decisions around reopening school buildings, keeping them open, and operating them safely.




The COVID-19 Crisis


Book Description

Since its emergence in early 2020, the COVID-19 crisis has affected every part of the world. Well beyond its health effects, the pandemic has wrought major changes in people’s everyday lives as they confront restrictions imposed by physical distancing and consequences such as loss of work, working or learning from home and reduced contact with family and friends. This edited collection covers a diverse range of experiences, practices and representations across international contexts and cultures (UK, Europe, North America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand). Together, these contributions offer a rich account of COVID society. They provide snapshots of what life was like for people in a variety of situations and locations living through the first months of the novel coronavirus crisis, including discussion not only of health-related experiences but also the impact on family, work, social life and leisure activities. The socio-material dimensions of quotidian practices are highlighted: death rituals, dating apps, online musical performances, fitness and exercise practices, the role of windows, healthcare work, parenting children learning at home, moving in public space as a blind person and many more diverse topics are explored. In doing so, the authors surface the feelings of strangeness and challenges to norms of practice that were part of many people’s experiences, highlighting the profound affective responses that accompanied the disruption to usual cultural forms of sociality and ritual in the wake of the COVID outbreak and restrictions on movement. The authors show how social relationships and social institutions were suspended, re-invented or transformed while social differences were brought to the fore. At the macro level, the book includes localised and comparative analyses of political, health system and policy responses to the pandemic, and highlights the differences in representations and experiences of very different social groups, including people with disabilities, LGBTQI people, Dutch Muslim parents, healthcare workers in France and Australia, young adults living in northern Italy, performing artists and their audiences, exercisers in Australia and New Zealand, the Latin cultures of Spain and Italy, Asian-Americans and older people in Australia. This volume will appeal to undergraduates and postgraduates in sociology, cultural and media studies, medical humanities, anthropology, political science and cultural geography.




Mental Health Effects of COVID-19


Book Description

The physical effects of COVID-19 are felt globally. However, one issue that has not been sufficiently addressed is the impact of COVID-19 on mental health. During the COVID-19 pandemic, citizens worldwide are enduring widespread lockdowns; children are out of school; and millions have lost their jobs, which has caused anxiety, depression, insomnia, and distress. Mental Health Effects of COVID-19 provides a comprehensive analysis of mental health problems resulting from COVID-19, including depression, suicidal thoughts and attempts, trauma, and PTSD. The book includes chapters detailing the impact of COVID-19 on the family's well-being and society dynamics. The book concludes with an explanation on how meditation and online treatment methods can be used to combat the effects on mental health. - Discusses family dynamics, domestic violence, and aggression due to COVID-19 - Details the psychological impact of COVID-19 on children and adolescents - Includes key information on depression, anxiety, and suicide as a result of COVID-19