Review of Impact of the Covid-19 Shock

Abstract

Shocks impact health. In the 20th century, smallpox killed around 300 million people, in 1918 the Spanish flu killed 50 million lives, and in 1975 the flu epidemic killed an additional 575,000. In 2020, Covid-19 emerged, generating a destructive sequel whose duration has not been determined. No government, entity, or individual was prepared to face it or had the experience to combat it. In the process, serious errors were committed in many countries due to the late supply of vaccines and the pattern of handling them, which not only cost lives, but also severely impacted the productive activities and well-being of their populations. The brewing recession comprises the largest losses suffered since the Great Depression excluding World War II. The global economy contracted by 3.3%, the Latin American by 7%, and the Panamanian by 17.9%. Deaths of more than 4 million people have been registered globally, of which more than 6,500 have occurred in Panama. "Panama became one of the most affected Latin American countries in the health and economic fields." The pandemic has affected GDP and employment more in Panama than in many other countries. Poverty and inequalities have increased with the risk of regressing in part what has been achieved in the last 30 years. Although public policy is aimed at recovering lost levels, in the short term an uneven global recovery could cause painful consequences for the health of the population, macroeconomic risks, and social consequences. Faced with this situation, the Government focused its efforts on increasing health spending, promoting prevention, detection and treatment measures, providing support to affected people, and providing liquidity to the financial system. This acted firmly to preserve human capital to foster future growth by introducing restrictions in the economic area and in relationships between people in order to reduce contagion.