COVID 19: Social, financial and economic implications

COVID-19 pandemic has forced business organizations, nations and governments to rethink on the predictive analysis of occurrence of such hazards and their social, economic and financial implications world over. Such challenging situations call for collaborative efforts between academia, research fraternity, media, and voluntary organizations to rhetorically ‘try and douse the flames’. Resolute action is required from various government agencies and health care service providers to promote sustainable healthy lifestyles, managing economic challenges, and nurturing scientific culture among masses and societies. Some nations perform better than others in managing the disaster and providing essential services owing to their better standards of public health infrastructure and sufficiency in financial, human and technical resources (Ortu et al, 2008; Oshitani, Kamigaki & Suzuki, 2008; Fedson, 2009)., Global financial markets, institutions and firms have observed many crises in the past. Having learnt its lessons, they have adequately adapted themselves to face similar eventualities in the future. Some of those crises were systematic and impacted the whole world. Whereas, some were specific to firms, institution and markets. These crises often have ended up causing financial markets to crash, generate high volatility, and lead to corporate failures owing to financial instability. Sometimes, even to the extent of raking up scandals due to inability of the leadership to efficiently manage the crisis. However, financial markets have never ignored the contagion effect. Post the global financial crisis of 2007-08, markets and institutions brought about many changes. Their preference to trade on the path of sustainable financial performance lead to: the formation of BASEL III guidelines, socially responsible investing, impact investing, digitization of financial institutions, payments & settlements and stringent corporate governance norms.