THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF COVID-19 AND ITS EFFECTS ON GLOBAL ECONOMY

Abstract

The relationship between human health and disease is neither a new concept nr a new subject. The outbreak of Covid-19 in Wuhan city of China in December, 2019 has turned out to be a global health emergency which triggers disastrous socio-economic and political crises in the infected countries. Covid-19, apart from becoming the greatest threat to global public health of the century, it has severely demobilized the global economy. It is against this backdrop that this paper examined the political economy of Covid-19 and its effects on the global economy. The paper argues that the measures taken to contain the epidemic in some countries appear as putting the nation under a state of siege. Some governments are adopting rather extreme measures - com-plete lockdown of the cities, the provinces and even the country itself, school closures, travel ban and cancellation of flights. The lack of responsible world leadership when it is most needed in terms of providing basic subsistence to the vulnerable especially in Africa has also proven problematic in the spread of the contagious disease. The paper concludes that the abuse of powers for narrow political motives exacerbate the spread of Covid-19 which brought considerable human suffering and economic disruption worldwide. The paper therefore recommends among others that the US government and the world leadership should strive to ensure effective and well-resourced public health measures to prevent infection and contagion, and implement well-targeted policies to support healthcare systems and workers, support low-income economies and protect the income of the vulnerable including social welfare payments to citizens while the monetary authorities offered loan relief to help businesses in the affected countries.