COVID-19 in Europe: economic policy and prospects
Ding Chun, published by China-CEE Institute on 28 May, 2020
As a typical non-traditional threat in the era of globalization, the COVID-19 pandemic
is raging through Europe. Since the diagnosis of the first European new coronavirus
patient in Bordeaux, France, on 24 January 2020, the pandemic situation in European
region has become increasingly severe. In particular, since mid-March 2020, Europe has
gradually become the epicenter of the global COVID-19 pandemic. However, as of midApril 2020, new cases of infections and deaths in Europe have slowed down, and the
pandemic characteristics of the inflection point and the plateau period are already quite
obvious. To the beginning of May, the number of Italy’s new coronavirus severe patients
fell below 1000 for the first time since March 11. The number of new cases and severe
patients in various countries including Spain and France has declined for several
consecutive days. The “positive” and “clear” signals of the new coronavirus pandemic
situation have spurred European countries to relax the restrictive measures, unblock
some industries such as retail and construction, and allow partial movement of people.
At the same time, European countries have indicated that they will maintain a cautious
attitude towards the new coronavirus pandemic and are ready to tighten the
restrictions again if necessary.
As of 23:00 on 22 May, Paris time, a total of 1.974 million new coronavirus infections
were reported in Europe, including a total of 172,500 deaths; the countries with more
than 100,000 cumulative confirmed cases are Russia, Britain, Spain, Italy, France,
Germany and Turkey, of which the UK has the highest number of confirmed cases with
254,000 and the second highest cumulative death toll with 36,300，behind Russia. Seen
from the world’s new coronavirus pandemic situation, the cumulative number of
confirmed cases in Europe accounts for 39.4% of the cumulative confirmed cases in the
world.
The development process of the European pandemic situation and the specific
European measures against the COVID-19 crisis have demonstrated the following
characteristics.
Originally published in the working paper of China-CEE Institute, Issue 19, 2020, Issue
ISSN: 2560-1628
*Full text link:
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