LAUSR

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was first reported as a cluster of pneumonia in the city of Wuhan in the Hubei province of China in December 2019. This was eventually identified to be severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-Cov-2) infectious disease with clinical symptoms of dry cough, fever, tiredness, pneumonia, and respiratory disorder that can lead to death in severe cases (Sarkodie & Owusu, 2020a). The World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 as public health emergency of international concern on 31 January 2020, after spreading from China to 24 countries. The declaration was intended to strengthen the coordination of appropriate public health responses to prevent the rapid spread of the disease. However, the significant travel connections around the world aided more infected individuals to arrive in international locations before appropriate control measures were put in place (Magazzino et al., 2021). The earlier reported number of infected persons as of 20 February 2020 stood at 76,496 cases including China (75,245), Diamond Princess cruise ship (634), South Korea (104), and other countries (513) infections (Sarkodie & Owusu, 2020b). WHO declared the outbreak as a pandemic on 11 March 2020, due to the alarming rate of spread and global severity (CDC, 2020). As of 27 July 2020 (see Figure 1), the COVID-19 outbreak had spread globally infecting estimated 16,305,273 persons—with 9,397,505 recoveries—5,509,025 active cases and 654,777 reported deaths in approximately 188 countries (Lauren, 2020). The COVID-19 virus devise means of transmission through direct and indirect, or close contact with infected secretions including saliva or respiratory droplet expelled from cough or sneeze. The disseminated infectious droplet nuclei and infectious droplet expelled can contaminate the surfaces and objects creating fomite (WHO, 2020). The lack of effective vaccine has forced central government across the globe to implement a series of lockdown intervention including social-distancing measures, shutdown of travel from in and out of the country. These large-scale lockdowns and restrictions by countries have disrupted the whole economic structure—leading to a drastic fall in foreign direct investment (FDI), gross domestic product (GDP), and export of goods and services (EGS) globally (Knoema, 2020). The COVID 19 pandemic outlook is highly uncertain, with perspective dependent on the duration of the health crisis. Global FDI was estimated to fall by 4000 basis points (bps) in the 2020 fiscal year, resulting in a low global FDI value of $1 trillion compared to $1.54 trillion in the 2019 fiscal year. FDI is expected to further fall by 50–100 bps in the 2021 fiscal year, representing 600 bps decline since 2005, from $2 trillion to less than $900 billion (United Nation Conference on Trade and Development [UNCTD], 2020). Figure 2 shows upward and downward movements of global FDI inflow over 14 years, with downward trend in 2019 and first half of 2020 far below both GDP and trade, this downward trend is expected to continue in 2021. These global economies are expected to register a weak performance more than the global financial crisis of 2008–2009. The demand and supply, trade, and finance in both developed and developing markets were set to fall sharply in the year 2020. Global GDP is estimated to reach its deepest global recession in decades, declining by 520 bps 2020, despite large-scale macroeconomic policies to soften the economic crisis—which far exceeds the policies enacted during the 2008–2009 financial crisis (World Bank, 2020). The advanced economies are expected to shrink by 700 bps, with China's market forecast to slow growth to 10 bps—the lowest in four decades—and emerging market and developing countries (EMDC) were estimated to fall by 250 bps in 2020. EMDC will be hard hit by the sharp decline in China's growth and decline in international commodity price resulting from falling in global demand on the international market, particularly crude oil (World Bank, 2020). The adverse spillover resulted in more than 90% fall in per capita Received: 26 August 2020 Revised: 27 November 2020 Accepted: 5 March 2021