Anser Muhammad Khalid, Yousaf Zahid, Khan Muhammad Azhar, Sheikh Abdullah Zafar, Nassani Abdelmohsen A, Abro Muhammad Moinuddin Qazi, Zaman Khalid
School of Public Administration, X'an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi'an, China.
Higher Education Department Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Government College of Management Sciences, Abbottabad, Pakistan.
Front Public Health. 2020 Aug 18;8:398. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.00398. eCollection 2020.
Coronavirus (COVID-19) is spreading at an enormous rate and has caused deaths beyond expectations due to a variety of reasons. These include: (i) inadequate healthcare spending causing, for instance, a shortage of protective equipment, testing swabs, masks, surgical gloves, gowns, etc.; (ii) a high population density that causes close physical contact among community members who reside in compact places, hence they are more likely to be exposed to communicable diseases, including coronavirus; and (iii) mass panic due to the fear of experiencing the loss of loved ones, lockdown, and shortage of food. In a given scenario, the study focused on the following key variables: communicable diseases, healthcare expenditures, population density, poverty, economic growth, and COVID-19 dummy variable in a panel of 76 selected countries from 2010 through 2019. The results show that the impact of communicable diseases on economic growth is positive because the infected countries get a reap of economic benefits from other countries in the form of healthcare technologies, knowledge transfers, cash transfers, international loans, aid, etc., to get rid of the diseases. However, the case is different with COVID-19 as it has seized the whole world together in a much shorter period of time and no other countries are able to help others in terms of funding loans, healthcare facilities, or technology transfers. Thus, the impact of COVID-19 in the given study is negatively impacting countries' economic growth that converts into a global depression. The high incidence of poverty and social closeness increases more vulnerable conditions that spread coronavirus across countries. The momentous increase in healthcare expenditures put a burden on countries' national healthcare bills that stretch the depression phase-out of the boundary. The forecasting relationship suggested the negative impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the global economy would last the next 10 years. Unified global healthcare policies, physical distancing, smart lockdowns, and meeting food challenges are largely required to combat the coronavirus pandemic and escape from global depression.
冠状病毒（COVID-19）正在以惊人的速度传播，由于多种原因导致死亡人数超出预期。这些原因包括：（i）医疗保健支出不足，例如导致防护设备、检测拭子、口罩、手术手套、防护服等短缺；（ii）人口密度高，导致居住在紧凑空间的社区成员之间有密切的身体接触，因此他们更容易接触到包括冠状病毒在内的传染病；（iii）由于担心失去亲人、封锁和食物短缺而引发的大规模恐慌。在给定的情景中，该研究聚焦于2010年至2019年期间76个选定国家组成的面板中的以下关键变量：传染病、医疗保健支出、人口密度、贫困、经济增长和COVID-19虚拟变量。结果表明，传染病对经济增长的影响是积极的，因为受感染国家从其他国家获得医疗技术、知识转移、现金转移、国际贷款、援助等形式的经济利益，以消除这些疾病。然而，COVID-19的情况不同，因为它在更短的时间内席卷了整个世界，而且没有其他国家能够在贷款资金、医疗设施或技术转让方面帮助其他国家。因此，在给定研究中，COVID-19的影响正在对各国的经济增长产生负面影响，进而转化为全球衰退。贫困和社会亲近度的高发生率增加了更脆弱的状况，使冠状病毒在各国传播。医疗保健支出的大幅增加给各国的国家医疗保健账单带来了负担，延长了衰退阶段的界限。预测关系表明，冠状病毒大流行对全球经济的负面影响将持续未来10年。为了抗击冠状病毒大流行并摆脱全球衰退，统一的全球医疗政策、保持身体距离、明智的封锁以及应对粮食挑战在很大程度上是必需的。
