ABSTRACT
The disease coronavirus disease (Covid-19), which emerged in December 2019, is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), named because of its genetic relationship to the virus responsible for the SARS outbreak in 2003. Urbanization and the growing connectivity among metropolitan centers contributed to the risk of contagion. The geographic spread of the disease affected the lives of hundreds of millions of people. The complexity of human mobility and the difficulty of containment strategies complicated the global response. The field of economics analyzes society’s material wants under the condition of scarcity. A potential tradeoff exists between efficiency and equity. Efficiency occurs when society receives the most it can from its scarce resources. Pandemics create both economic costs and health consequences. The coronavirus pandemic inflicted multiple shocks on countries: the spread of disease, economic downturn, and reverberations from the rest of the world.
