The covid- 19 virus has affected all of us greatly globally. As we all know, the corona virus is desperately after our health; and unfortunately a similar case is with the economies; they got quite sick too. Particularly looking at Asia and Europe’s economies, the corona pandemic impacted these a lot.
“The crisis is a major shock for developed economies, but for developing countries, it is an emergency”, states Mr. António Gutteres, Secretary-General of the United Nations. Considering that Europe has 20 developing countries and Asia has 30 developing countries, these continents are in jeopardy, and implying a bigger emergency for Asia. This is not just a statement,it is indeed actually seen.
For example, in Asia, the economy has been severely affected, especially markets such as aviation, accommodation, tour operator and travels & tourism, which has been among the most sorely affected sectors during the pandemic, mainly due to strict travel bans. And sadly, this doesn’t seem to end soon; the tourism sector is expected to face consequences for an even longer period of time. At the same time, Europe’s challenges are no less; despite having the most tourism in the world, being the most visited region and contributing to 50% of the world’s tourism (according to UNWTO), it seems to have not gotten any luck. According to a recent European Parliament report, revenue is expected to drop 50% for hotels and restaurants, 70% for tour operators and travel agencies and 90% for cruises and airlines. On the whole, “Losses in tourism proceeds could exceed 3 percent of GDP in Greece and Portugal”, according to the International Monetary Fund´s (IMF) recent 2020 External sector report. Considering that tourism supports 1 in 10 jobs, some 120 million direct jobs in tourism are at risk, according to the UN Secretary-General’s policy brief on tourism and COVID-19. So, both Asia and Europe’s economies are devastated by the decrease in tourism.
While Europe seems to be hit harder by tourism than Asia, Asia’s not doing so great as coping up has been a little lagged; reports claim that Asia is far, far behind in distributing vaccines when compared to Europe due to many Asian governments having a problem securing vaccines. Asia-Pacific countries have together administered around 23.8 doses of Covid vaccine per 100 people, according to CNBC analysis of data. That’s much below Europe’s 48.5 doses per 100 people, the data displayed. And not only does Asia have to deal with the shortage, but also has to deal with the views of its people who are considering vaccines with less urgency and have wrong perceptions of covid and its intensity, mainly due to the reason that they initially succeeded containing the virus.
India, Nepal, Malaysia, Japan and Taiwan are part of those that have broken records in the number of daily cases, and a main culprit in this is assumed to be it’s population density with Asia’s population density being 100/km2 (260/sq mi), which is more than Europe’s being 72.9/km2 (188/sq mi) (2nd).
Though Europe and Asia have and are presently facing challenges and dealing with a lot, Asia in some ways has been affected more.
