Its primary goals were to maintain price stability, ensure favorable financing conditions across the eurozone, and safeguard the transmission of monetary policy during a period of severe economic disruption.

[68] Notably, the ECB was permitted to deviate from its traditional capital key rule, which ties purchases to member states' GDP and population, allowing more flexibility in responding to crisis conditions.

The program marked a significant moment in EU history, as it was the first large-scale recovery initiative financed through joint borrowing by member states, signaling deeper fiscal integration within the union.

[74] The Recovery and Resilience Facility continues to oversee the implementation of member states' projects, though its disbursements are now primarily focused on monitoring progress and ensuring compliance with pre-approved plans.

[98] The decision of the WHO on 11 March 2020, to qualify COVID as a pandemic, that is "an epidemic occurring worldwide, or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries and usually affecting a large number of people" also contributed to building this global-scale disaster narrative.

These include supply chain disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021–2023 global energy crisis, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and floods and heatwaves during 2021 (which destroyed key American and European crops).

[140] The broader effects of this volatility impacted credit markets, and save for government interventions and central banks pursuing quantitative easing, would have led to more significant economic downturns.

[156] In light of the public health situation in which includes afflicted regions where retail sectors deemed non-essential have been ordered closed for the interim,[157] Diamond Comic Distributors announced on 24 March 2020 a full suspension of distributing published material and related merchandise as 1 April 2020 until further notice.

[199] A large number of tech workers have been laid off starting in 2023;[200] excessive hiring during the pandemic has been cited as one reason for the job cuts, along with increased interest rates and reduced demand from consumers.

[211] Shares of cruise lines fell sharply in value on 27 March 2020 when the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act excluded companies that are not "organized" under United States law.

[218] Gambling companies are eager to shift customers from retail into online casino and poker games to fight the loss of revenue due to the cancellation of sports fixtures and the shutdown of betting shops.

[244] Around the world, women generally earn less and save less, are the majority of single-parent households and disproportionately hold more insecure jobs in the informal economy or service sector with less access to social protections.

[245][246][247][248][249][241][250] For many families, school closures and social distancing measures have increased the unpaid care and domestic load of women at home, making them less able to take on or balance paid work.

This increase was largely due to significant job losses and reduced income among the lowest earners, particularly in regions like South Asia where extreme poverty rose by 2.4 percentage points.

Although some regions experienced a decline in poverty due to effective fiscal policies, such as in Brazil, the overall global trend indicates a widening gap between the economically vulnerable and those able to maintain or enhance their financial stability during the pandemic.

Though cautioning that the economic impact would be short-term, PRC National Development and Reform Commission party secretary Cong Liang views small and medium businesses encountering more difficulties in their operations.

[272] On 24 February, China's Standing Committee declared an immediate and "comprehensive" ban on its US$74 billion wildlife trade industry, citing the "prominent problem of excessive consumption of wild animals, and the huge hidden dangers to public health and safety" that has been revealed by the outbreak.

[275] In March 2020, satellite images from space provided by NASA revealed that pollution has dropped significantly, which has been attributed in part to the slowdown of economic activity as a result of the outbreak.

[300] To fuel economic growth, the country set aside hundreds of billions of dollars for major infrastructure projects and used population tracking policies and enforced the stringent lockdown to contain the virus.

[355] In early February 2020 Taiwan's Central Epidemic Command Center requested the mobilisation of the Taiwanese Armed Forces to contain the spread of the virus and to build up the defences against it.

[402] In Spain, a large number of exhibitors (including Chinese firms Huawei and Vivo) announced plans to pull out of or reduce their presence at Mobile World Congress, a wireless industry trade show in Barcelona, due to concerns over coronavirus.

[460] On 22 May, the Government of Ireland had signed off on €6.8 billion in extra funding for the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, as it was due to reach this year's spending limit early the following month.

[463] On 7 September, it was announced that Ireland was now officially in recession after the economy shrank by 6.1% between April and June as the impact of COVID-19 brought the largest quarterly drop on record, following new figures published by the Central Statistics Office.

[476] After the "Sostegni Decree" of 23 March 2021,[477] the Italian government has ended the ban on collective dismissals since 1 July,[478] except for the textile, fashion and footwear economic sectors for which it has been extended until 31 October.

[502] The viral outbreak was cited by many companies in their briefings to shareholders, but several maintained confidence that they would not be too adversely affected by short-term disruption due to "limited" exposure to the Chinese consumer market.

[510] The Washington Post reported in February that President Donald Trump told advisors that he did not want the government to say or do anything that might spook the stock market, on concerns a large-scale outbreak could hurt his reelection chances.

[511] On 26 February, The New York Times (NYT) reported a case in California which the Center for Disease Control confirmed as the first possible community transmission of coronavirus in the United States.

[495][537][538][539][540] In a Business Economics article that was published on 7 December 2020 and won NABE's 2020 Edmund A. Mennis Contributed Paper Award, Xiaobing Shu, Christine Chmura & James Stinchcomb claimed that "COVID-19 has caused a significant decline in labor demand, by as much as 30%, measured by the number of job advertisements.

It suggests that strategic reforms aimed at promoting fair competition, coupled with investments in infrastructure and education, are crucial for unlocking potential growth and improving economic outcomes.

[549] In response to the economic halt, on 24 March, the executive decreed the payment of a one-time welfare benefit to the lowest earning self-employed taxpayers left with no sources of income in their household.