The key event of 2020 was the COVID‑19 virus and its impacts on health, mortality rates, economies, and government budgets. From the first reports of a pneumonia of unknown origin in Wuhan, China, the COVID‑19 pandemic grew and spread to countries around the world, becoming a global storm affecting health and economic performance. Indeed, there is some debate amongst public health officials and epidemiologists as to when the virus began spreading from its origin point. By April of 2021, the tally reached 129 million infections and 2.8 million deaths. This study examines the pandemic by comparing the performance of countries in terms of (1) infection rates and mortality rates; (2) the response to dealing with the pandemic in terms of the strategies employed—testing and restrictions; (3) the severity of the economic shock (changes in GDP); and (4) the economic and fiscal response by governments to the economic shock brought about by the pandemic. As well, regression analysis is employed to assess the relationship between key indicators of the effect of the pandemic on the economy and the response of mitigating measures on the pandemic and the economy. The evidence and results in this study offer some early and tentative analysis as to the effects of the pandemic, differences in international impacts and containment efforts, and the economic and fiscal impacts and effectiveness of associated responses.

Within the range of recent modern experience, the COVID‑19 pandemic is considered unprecedented but it is not the Black Death, which between 1347 and 1351 is estimated to have carried off up to half of the European population—nor to date has it mortality equal to the Spanish Flu, which is estimated to have killed anywhere from 20 to 100 million people. As well, the mortality and morbidity effects have been more concentrated on the elderly rather than the working-age population aged 20 to 65 years, though recent variants seem to be changing this pattern. While past pandemics had dramatic effects on long-term capital-to-labour ratios, wages, and interest rates, the COVID‑19 pandemic’s long-term effects have yet to emerge though it has had severe short-term effects through its disruption of modern economic production with its highly integrated supply chains and emphasis on personal services and, in the absence of vaccines and effective treatments, the effect upon economies of restrictions designed to limit the spread of the virus.