Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic started in China at the end of 2019; however, during 2020, it has spread to more than 188 countries causing very hard times. Europe and the United States have followed different strategies to fight the virus. The differences between those areas in relation with the pandemic could be named shortly as for example the additional time that the United States had to prepare everything against the pandemic compared to Europe, as the American government had around three weeks in comparison to Europe to plan the strategy against the pandemic. The density of population is also an example of the differences between those areas as the United States has a lower population density compared to Europe, and this is another key fact affecting the spreading of COVID-19. The main objective of the study is to compare the different measures adopted by each region and analyze the impact they have in the economy and in small and medium businesses. Specific conclusions about the impact of the measures adopted will be extracted, and some lessons could be obtained from those conclusions.
TopBackground
There are authors that justify that country-based mitigation measures influence the course of the COVID-19 (Anderson et al, 2020).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Teleworking: Ability of working from home instead of going to a office, store or warehouse.
Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs): Usually, the small and medium-sized companies are having less than 50 and 250 employees, respectively. They represent 99% of the businesses in the European Union.
COVID-19: Contagious respiratory disease that is caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2, being identified by the first time in Wuhan, China and that caused a global pandemic.
Digitalization: Process of transforming information into digital format.
Mitigation Measures: Activities performed to avoid the impact in the economy of the effects of the pandemic.
Disruptive Innovation: Process that creates new innovative products or services by applying a new technology.