The Impact of Covid 19 Lockdowns on Western Balkan's Economic
Blerta Haliti Baruti
https://doi.org/10.47191/jefms/v4-i9-15ABSTRACT:
Just a few years and a few months ago no one had heard of the coronavirus. Today this disease has profoundly changed the lives of millions of people. Thus, policy makers have been thinking about finding the answer to the economic crisis it has caused. What impact COVID-19 will have on the economy is immediately understood to be negative, but the extent of the damage will depend on the speed with which the authorities have undertaken to improve it and how willing governments have been to establish a kind of economic support for the immediate impact during the epidemic and the consequences it has caused. March 2020 Covid-19 immediate lockdowns played a crucial role in controlling the fast rise in cases. Countries that had failed to implement an immediate lockdown oversaw the immediate rise in cases, with worst-affected countries including Italy, the United States, UK, and Spain. Former US President Donald Trump insisted that the pandemic would not have been lethal if the countries engaged in immediate lockdown. Lockdown measures also bore positive results in European countries and finally Western Balkan. However, despite the low cases in Balkan, countries that implemented immediate lockdowns, such as Greece, Romania, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia, saw a rise in unemployment. Unemployment rose from 4.8% to 46%, illustrating the negative impact of the pandemic towards socio-economic welfare, with primarily the disruption of SMEs and MNEs being a significant concern.
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