From a little-known region of China, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become the defining phenomenon of the new decade, spreading all over the world, ignoring geopolitical and socioeconomic barriers to infect even people as powerful as the President of the United States.

The COVID-19 pandemic has plunged the world into an economic downturn that most experts predict will rival that of the Great Depression. To prevent its spread, countries
have scrambled to impose quarantine measures, to the detriment of business and large-scale industries. Millions of lives have been lost, and millions more have lost their livelihoods