Current Response and Management Decisions of the European Union to the COVID-19 Outbreak: A Review

Abstract

COVID-19 has proven to be a formidable challenge for many countries in the European Union to manage effectively. The European Union has implemented numerous strategies to face emerging issues. Member States have adopted measures such as the closure of borders and significant limitations on the mobility of people to mitigate the spread of the virus. An unprecedented crisis coordination effort between Member States has facilitated the ability to purchase equipment, personal protective equipment, and other medical supplies. Attention has also been focused on providing substantive money for research to find a vaccine and promote effective treatment therapies. Financial support has been made available to protect worker salaries and businesses to help facilitate a return to a functional economy. Lessons learned to date from COVID-19 in the European Union are many; the current crisis highlights the need to think about future pandemics from a population-based management approach and apply outside the box critical thinking. Due to the complexity, intensity, and frequency of complex disasters, global leaders in healthcare, government, and business will need to pivot from siloed approaches to decision-making to embrace multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary levels of cooperation. This cooperation requires courage and leadership to recognize that changes are necessary to avoid making the same mistakes we have planned countless times on avoiding. This study focuses on the European Union’s initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic, starting with how the European Union first learned and processed the global information arising out of China, followed by the incremental population-based medicine/management decisions made that currently are defining the European Union’s capacity and capability. The capacity to organize, deliver, and monitor care to a specific clinical population under a population-based management target includes strict social distancing strategies, contact testing and tracing, testing for the virus antigen and its antibodies, isolation, and treatment modalities such as new mitigating medications, and finally, a vaccine.

Decline in Mobility: Public Transport in Poland in the time of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Nicola et al (2020) show the strong, negative consequences of the pandemic in all sectors of the economy including primary, secondary and service sectors. The coronavirus pandemic has proven to be a formidable challenge for many European Union countries, including Poland (Czech et al 2020;Goniewicz et al 2020). According to Cochrane (2020), there is a strong need to create and implement a retail economy rescue plan that would prevent bankruptcies and insolvencies where possible.…”

Disasters and Public Health Emergencies—Current Perspectives in Preparedness and Response

“…These reports all indicate the need for collaboration and coordination, not only among various agencies but also among different states and nations. Current pandemic shows that all nations and states can be influenced, and indicates a need for a collaborative and coordinated approach to healthcare, and economic and social issues resulting from a disaster [16,17].…”

“…A flexible surge capacity needs trained leadership and other personal resources. Phattharapornjaroen et al [20] searched for alternative leadership among emergency physicians (EP) in Thailand [17]. Using an established method for training collaboration, two training courses were arranged for over 50 Thai EPs, who were divided into three teams of prehospital, hospital, and incident command groups.…”

Covid-19 Pandemic: Early Implications for North European Manufacturing and Logistics

“…Even poorer Southeast Asian countries were forced to implement lockdowns as the virus spread was suddenly growing, and also to provide economic stimulus and help, in turn leading to higher governmental debt levels [11]. In the "old west", earlier epidemics had already changed legislations, and the supranational authority of the European Union enabled a quick, strict, and planned process response in Europe [12,13]. However, there is early evidence that prosperous nations in the Covid-19 crisis could have higher mortality rates than poorer ones, leading to the discussion point of whether the old west has responded to and behaved in the crisis well enough to tackle the virus [14].…”