Coronavirus Disruption: Did Europe React too Slowly?

Waking up on the 12th of March at 05:30 to see over 30 GroupMe notifications plus an article from the BBC announcing Trump’s European travel ban, was not how I had envisioned the start of my day.

As the Fresh Prince would say, “this is a story all about how my life got flipped-turned upside down.” 

I can imagine that my dad was both confused and worried as he picked up the phone at around 01:00 EST, and I told him that the Brussels Program had been cancelled and that it was time to book a last-minute flight back home. For our entire group, getting back to the U.S. was a frantic affair in which we scrambled to deregister at the local commune, pack all of our things, and say à bientôt or tot ziens to our life in Belgium.

While it was difficult for us to just up-and-leave our internships and college in Brussels, world leaders around the world face the challenges posed by COVID-19 and are forced to make difficult decisions to protect their citizens and attempt to quell the disease’s spread. 

Interning in an institution where more than 3,000 people come to work everyday from all over Europe (and that’s not even counting around 1,000 visitors per day) was definitely a cause for concern since the beginning of February. So, when European Parliament president David Sassoli made the controversial decision in early March to close the Parliament to everyone but employees, I was slightly relieved; however, many remained on high-alert to developments.

As I continue my internship remotely from across the pond, most of my work deals with compiling situation updates on COVID-19 from around the globe. My co-workers and I do this daily, and it is interesting to see how various governments’ action plans have changed as the pandemic worsens. 

A major question is whether or not Europe (or other global hot spots) reacted too slowly to the spread of the disease. Europe is a special case because each country is handling the COVID-19 outbreak in their own way — there is no uniform policy. Given this, there are obvious signs that countries have reacted too slowly, most notably with Italy and Spain, the second European country to report over 1,000 cases of the virus.

Crises put leaders in a bind where, on the one hand, they must choose a method of response, and on the other hand where they must continue to monitor the situation in order to ascertain a proper (and usually tentative) solution. But economic concerns must also be factored into the equation: large-scale teleworking, layoffs, a bear market, and lockdowns do not yield a promising, short-term financial outlook.

Despite many countries’ shortcomings with making adequate health, economic, and political measures as the pandemic accelerates, there is more willingness from world leaders (excepting those such as Iran’s supreme leader) to take this uncertain situation seriously and to discern the best course of action going forward.