Government as a Facilitator versus Inhibitor of Social Entrepreneurship in Times of Public Health Emergencies.

COVID-19 established the need for even more social entrepreneurship globally. It is important for keeping society together in times of crises because it creates an environment that improves the quality of life during hard times and public health emergencies such as COVID-19. Even though it plays a unique role in returning things back to normal after a crisis, it faces opposition from many parts of society, especially the government. Still, there are not many studies that look at what the government should do to help or stop social enterprise during public health emergencies. That is why the goal of this study was to find out how the government has helped or hindered social entrepreneurs. Content analysis was conducted on the carefully mined data from the internet. The research found that regulations for social enterprises should be loosened, especially during and after pandemics and disasters. This could also make it easier to accomplish things in the government. It was also found that, in addition to financial help, capacity building through training can help social enterprises do more and make a bigger difference. This research provides broader guidelines for policymakers and new entrants in the field.

Social Entrepreneurship Opportunities via Distant Socialization and Social Value Creation

Social entrepreneurs are catalysts for social change on account of social value creation and opportunity identification, thereby improving the quality of life. Their contribution to society is particularly significant in times of crises and pandemics. Hence, the world health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the need for social entrepreneurship across the globe. Despite social entrepreneurship's relevance in social value creation, the studies regarding opportunity identification in times of social distancing are particularly rare. This constructivist-qualitative research fills the gap by employing the EDraw Mind Map tool to explore how the COVID-19 pandemic in general, and social distancing in particular, have shaped entrepreneurial opportunities for social innovation. The findings from content analysis reveal that ICT-based services and industry 4.0 hold a promising future during and post-COVID-19 scenario. They can facilitate a transformation of the threats of social distancing into distant socialization benefits and demand fulfillment. Furthermore, the study contributes to providing a comprehensive depiction of the myriad of opportunities created by social entrepreneurs worldwide. It also guides aspiring social entrepreneurs to adopt such technologies and aim for social integration to ensure quality mental health, education, employment, and manufacturing services in low-resource and developing countries' contexts, as they are severely impacted by the pandemic.

Do environmental pollutants carrier to COVID-19 pandemic? A cross-sectional analysis.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a highly transmitted disease that spreads all over the globe in a short period. Environmental pollutants are considered one of the carriers to spread the COVID-19 pandemic through health damages. Carbon emissions, PM2.5 emissions, nitrous oxide emissions, GHG, and other GHG emissions are mainly judged separately in the earlier studies in different economic settings. The study hypothesizes that environmental pollutants adversely affect healthcare outcomes, likely to infected people by contagious diseases, including coronavirus cases. The subject matter is vital to analyze the preventive healthcare theory by using different environmental pollutants on the COVID-19 factors: total infected cases, total death cases, and case fatality ratio, in a large cross-section of 119 countries. The study employed the generalized least square (GLS) method for robust inferences. The results show that GHG and CO2 emissions are critical factors likely to increase total coronavirus cases and death rates. On the other hand, nitrous oxide, carbon, and transport emissions increase the case fatality ratio through healthcare damages. The study concludes that stringent environmental policies and improving healthcare infrastructure can control coronavirus cases across countries.

Environmental and natural resource degradation in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic: a wake-up call.

The study's objective is to examine the relationship between COVID-19 cases, environmental sustainability ratings, and mineral resource rents in a large cross section of 97 countries. The emergence of novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) enlarges its magnitude across the international borders and damages social, economic, and environmental infrastructure with a high rate of human death tolls. The mineral resources are also devastated, which served as a primary raw input into the production system. The adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the environment and mineral resources are studied in a large panel of countries and found that mineral resource rents and population growth improve environmental sustainability rating (ESR). In contrast, an increase in coronavirus cases decreases the rating scale across countries. Further, mineral resources first decrease along with increased COVID-19 cases due to strict government policies, including the mandatory shutdown of economic institutions. Further, mineral resource rents increase later because of resuming economic activities in many parts of the world. The high rate of population growth is another important factor that negatively affects mineral resources across countries. Through impulse response and variance decomposition estimates, an exacerbated coronavirus cases and population growth would likely negatively affect ESR and mineral resources. In contrast, COVID-19 recovered cases will likely play a more significant role in securing mineral resources over time. Therefore, the global mineral resource conservation policies and improving ESR are highly needed during the COVID-19 to keep the significant economic gains in unprecedented times.

Nonlinearity in the relationship between COVID-19 cases and carbon damages: controlling financial development, green energy, and R&D expenditures for shared prosperity.

The world faces a high alert of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), leading to a million deaths and could become infected to reach a billion numbers. A sizeable amount of scholarly work has been available on different aspects of social-economic and environmental factors. At the same time, many of these studies found the linear (direct) causation between the stated factors. In many cases, the direct relationship is not apparent. The world is unsure about the possible determining factors of the COVID-19 pandemic, which need to be known through conducting nonlinearity (indirect) relationships, which caused the pandemic crisis. The study examined the nonlinear relationship between COVID-19 cases and carbon damages, managing financial development, renewable energy consumption, and innovative capability in a cross section of 65 countries. The results show that inbound foreign direct investment first increases and later decreases because of the increasing coronavirus cases. Further, the rise and fall in the research and development expenditures and population density exhibits increasing coronavirus cases across countries. The continued economic growth initial decreases later increase by adopting standardized operating procedures to contain coronavirus disease. The inter-temporal relationship shows that green energy source and carbon damages would likely influence the coronavirus cases with a variance of 17.127% and 5.440%, respectively, over a time horizon. The policymakers should be carefully designing sustainable healthcare policies, as the cost of carbon emissions leads to severe healthcare issues, which are likely to get exposed to contagious diseases, including COVID-19. The sustainable policy instruments, including renewable fuels in industrial production, advancement in cleaner production technologies, the imposition of carbon taxes on dirty production, and environmental certifications, are a few possible remedies that achieve healthcare sustainability agenda globally.

The impact of coal combustion, nitrous oxide emissions, and traffic emissions on COVID-19 cases: a Markov-switching approach.

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spread to more than 200 countries with a current case fatality ratio (CFR) of more than 2% globally. The concentration of air pollutants is considered a critical factor responsible for transmitting coronavirus disease among the masses. The photochemical process and coal combustions create respiratory disorders that lead to coronavirus disease. Based on the crucial fact, the study evaluated the impact of nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions, coal combustion, and traffic emissions on COVID-19 cases in a panel of 39 most affected countries of the world. These three air pollution factors are considered to form a lethal smog that negatively affects the patient's respiratory system, leading to increased susceptibility to coronavirus worldwide. The study used the Markov two-step switching regime regression model for obtaining parameter estimates. In contrast, an innovation accounting matrix is used to assess smog factors' intensity on possibly increasing coronavirus cases over time. The results show that N2O emissions, coal combustion, and traffic emissions increase COVID-19 cases in regime-1. On the other hand, N2O emissions significantly increase coronavirus cases in regime-2. The innovation accounting matrix shows that N2O emissions would likely have a more significant share of increasing coronavirus cases with a variance of 33.902%, followed by coal combustion (i.e., 6.643%) and traffic emissions (i.e., 2.008%) over the time horizon. The study concludes that air quality levels should be maintained through stringent environmental policies, such as carbon pricing, sustainable urban planning, green technology advancement, renewable fuels, and pollution less accessible vehicles. All these measures would likely decrease coronavirus cases worldwide.

Socio-economic and corporate factors and COVID-19 pandemic: a wake-up call.

The novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) emerges from the Chinese city Wuhan and its spread to the rest of the world, primarily affected economies and their businesses, leading to a global depression. The explanatory and cross-sectional regression approach assesses the impact of COVID-19 cases on healthcare expenditures, logistics performance index, carbon damages, and corporate social responsibility in a panel of 77 countries. The results show that COVID-19 cases substantially increase healthcare expenditures and decrease corporate social responsibility. On the other hand, an increase in the coronavirus testing capacity brings positive change in reducing healthcare expenditures, increased logistics activities, and corporate social responsibility. The cost of carbon emissions increases when corporate activities begin to resume. The economic affluence supports logistics activities and improves healthcare infrastructure. It linked to international cooperation and their assistance to supply healthcare logistics traded equipment through mutual trade agreements. The greater need to enhance global trade and healthcare logistics supply helps minimize the sensitive coronavirus cases that are likely to provide a safe and healthy environment for living.

Financial development, oil resources, and environmental degradation in pandemic recession: to go down in flames.

The novel coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) is a deadly disease that increases global healthcare sufferings. Further, it affects the financial and natural resource market simultaneously, as both are considered complementary goods. The volatility in the oil prices deteriorates the global financial market to substantiate the "financial resource (oil) curse" hypothesis primarily filled with earlier studies. In contrast, this study moved forward and extended the given relationship during the COVID-19 pandemic in a panel of 81 different countries. The study's main objective is to examine the volatility in the domestic credit provided to the private sector due to oil shocks and the COVID-19 pandemic across countries. The study is essential to assess the healthcare vulnerability in the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to the damage of financial stability, causing deterioration in the oil rents to affect the global sustainability agenda. The study employed statistical techniques to get sound inferences of the parameter estimates, including robust least squares regression, seemingly unrelated regression, and innovation accounting matrix to get a variable estimate at the level and inter-temporal framework. The results confirmed the U-shaped relationship between oil rents and financial development during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, it verifies the "financial resource (oil) curse" hypothesis at the initial stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. Later down, it supports the capital market when economies are resuming their economic activities and maintaining the SOPs to restrain coronavirus at a global scale. The qualitative assessment confirmed the negative effect of financial development and oil shocks on environmental quality during the pandemic crisis. The innovation accounting matrix shows that the COVID-19 pandemic will primarily be the main factor that intervenes in the relationship between oil rents and financial development, which proceed towards the "resource curse" hypothesis during the following years' time period. Therefore, the need for long-term economic policies is highly desirable to support the financial and resource market under the suggested guidelines of restraining coronavirus worldwide.

Does COVID-19 pandemic disrupt sustainable supply chain process? Covering some new global facts.

The adverse effects of the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic are widely visible in the economic structure, while the principal causal factor is the disruption of the supply chain process that leads to the economies into a global depression. The purpose of the study is to identify the critical factors that affect the global sustainable supply chain process in the cross-sectional panel of 38 European countries, 14 North American countries, 40 Asian countries, and a heterogeneous panel of 111 countries. The results show that an increase in susceptible coronavirus cases and death tolls limits the supply chain process because of nationwide closures of industries and business activities. In contrast, an increase in the number of recovered cases supports economic activities and improved logistic performance index across countries. The innovation accounting matrix shows that since August 2020, the global coronavirus cases will decline and start resuming economic activities to increase the supply chain process. The result is further supported by the estimates of reduction in the proportion of death to recovered cases (case fatality ratio 1) to increase sustainable logistics activities. However, the supply chain process could affect an increasing death toll and case fatality ratio 2 (i.e., the proportion of death to registered cases) over time. The global economies should ensure a free flow of sustainable logistics supply, especially the supply of healthcare medical equipment that would help control the coronavirus pandemic, which escapes from the nations from a global depression.

Does improvement in the environmental sustainability rating help to reduce the COVID-19 cases? Controlling financial development, price level and carbon damages.

The study's objective is to evaluate the impact of environmental sustainability rating, financial development, changes in the price level and carbon damages on the new COVID-19 cases in a cross-sectional panel of 17 countries. The study developed two broad models to analyse the relationship between the stated factors at the current level and forecast level. The results show that improvement in the environmental sustainability rating and financial efficiency reduces the COVID-19 cases, while continued economic growth and changes in price level likely to exacerbate the COVID-19 cases across countries. The forecast results suggest the U-shaped relationship between COVID-19 cases and carbon damages controlling financial development, price level and environmental sustainability rating. The variance decomposition analysis shows that carbon damages, environmental sustainability rating and price level changes will largely influence COVID-19 cases over the next year. The soundness of economic and ecological regulated policies would be helpful to contain coronavirus cases globally.

Demographic, psychological, and environmental factors affecting student's health during the COVID-19 pandemic: on the rocks.

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is spreading exponentially, increasing fear, depression, and other mental health disorders in the general public. Pakistan's economy is suffered mainly by the novel coronavirus. The massive healthcare expenditures bring inadequacy to manage COVID-19. The study explored the effects of coronavirus fear among the students who remain in their homes due to educational institutions' closure. The study results show that female students mostly fear the coronavirus pandemic compared to their male counterparts that negatively impact their health. The "age" of the students and "household size" positively impact students' health, while the student's existing "healthcare profile" is not competitive enough to escape from the deadly coronavirus. The "knowledge" for the coronavirus pandemic and its prevention guidelines is the only solution to contain coronavirus. Simultaneously, "ignorance" is the foremost factor that could be more dangerous to spread coronavirus among the students; besides the COVID-19 pandemic, students and general public health mainly suffered from environmental pollution. The current epidemic also exacerbated environmental concerns among students isolated in their homes, and their outdoor activities are primarily limited. Hence, the student's quality of life is exposed mainly to environmental pollution over time. The "healthcare expenditures" and "government support" both are not competitive enough to control novel coronavirus. Thus, it required more sustainable strategic policies and national unity to controlled coronavirus with firm conviction and provincial synchronization.

Financial development during COVID-19 pandemic: the role of coronavirus testing and functional labs.

The outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in early 2020, known as COVID-19, spread to more than 200 countries and negatively affected the global economic output. Financial activities were primarily depressed, and investors were reluctant to start new financial investments while ongoing projects further declined due to the global lockdown to curb the disease. This study analyzes the money supply reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic using a cross-sectional panel of 115 countries. The study used robust least square regression and innovation accounting techniques to get sound parameter estimates. The results show that COVID-19 infected cases are the main contributing factor that obstructs financial activities and decrease money supply. In contrast, an increasing number of recovered cases and COVID-19 testing capabilities gave investors confidence to increase stock trade across countries. The overall forecast trend shows that COVID-19 infected cases and recovered cases followed the U-shaped trend, while COVID-19 critical cases and reported deaths showed a decreasing trend. Finally, the money supply and testing capacity show a positive trend over a period. The study concludes that financial development can be expanded by increasing the testing capacity and functional labs to identify suspected coronavirus cases globally.

Identifying the Potential Causes, Consequences, and Prevention of Communicable Diseases (Including COVID-19).

Communicable and noncommunicable diseases cause millions of deaths every year, increased billions of healthcare expenditures, and consequently increase trillions of economic losses at a global scale. This study more focused on the prevalence of communicable diseases, including COVID-19 that is an emerging pandemic, which affects the global economy. The objective of the study is to examine the impact of population density, lack of sanitation facilities, chemical concentration, fossil fuel combustions, poverty incidence, and healthcare expenditures on communicable diseases including COVID-19. The study covered a large panel of heterogenous countries to assess the relationships between the stated factors by using the robust least square regression, Granger causality test, and innovation accounting matrix. The study used a time series data from 2010 to 2019 for assessing the determinants of communicable diseases, while it is further extended with the current data of 2019-2020 for the COVID-19 pandemic. The results of the study show that high population density, lack of primary handwashing facilities, chemicals used in manufacturing value-added fossil fuel combustion, and poverty headcount substantially increase communicable diseases. In contrast, population diffusion, low carbon concentration in air, renewable fuels, and healthcare expenditures decrease infectious diseases in a panel of 78 countries. The causal inferences found the bidirectional relationship between communicable diseases and primary handwashing facility, and carbon emissions and poverty headcount, whereas the unidirectional relationship is running from lack of sanitation to infectious diseases, economic growth to carbon emissions, and communicable diseases to fossil fuel combustion across countries. Communicable diseases increase healthcare expenditures and decrease the country's economic growth which is a vital concern of the global economy to confront the outbreak of novel coronavirus through increasing the healthcare budget in national bills and stabilize financial activities at a worldwide scale.

Communicable Diseases (Including COVID-19)-Induced Global Depression: Caused by Inadequate Healthcare Expenditures, Population Density, and Mass Panic.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) is spreading at an enormous rate and has caused deaths beyond expectations due to a variety of reasons. These include: (i) inadequate healthcare spending causing, for instance, a shortage of protective equipment, testing swabs, masks, surgical gloves, gowns, etc.; (ii) a high population density that causes close physical contact among community members who reside in compact places, hence they are more likely to be exposed to communicable diseases, including coronavirus; and (iii) mass panic due to the fear of experiencing the loss of loved ones, lockdown, and shortage of food. In a given scenario, the study focused on the following key variables: communicable diseases, healthcare expenditures, population density, poverty, economic growth, and COVID-19 dummy variable in a panel of 76 selected countries from 2010 through 2019. The results show that the impact of communicable diseases on economic growth is positive because the infected countries get a reap of economic benefits from other countries in the form of healthcare technologies, knowledge transfers, cash transfers, international loans, aid, etc., to get rid of the diseases. However, the case is different with COVID-19 as it has seized the whole world together in a much shorter period of time and no other countries are able to help others in terms of funding loans, healthcare facilities, or technology transfers. Thus, the impact of COVID-19 in the given study is negatively impacting countries' economic growth that converts into a global depression. The high incidence of poverty and social closeness increases more vulnerable conditions that spread coronavirus across countries. The momentous increase in healthcare expenditures put a burden on countries' national healthcare bills that stretch the depression phase-out of the boundary. The forecasting relationship suggested the negative impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the global economy would last the next 10 years. Unified global healthcare policies, physical distancing, smart lockdowns, and meeting food challenges are largely required to combat the coronavirus pandemic and escape from global depression.

The impacts of COVID-19 measures on global environment and fertility rate: double coincidence.

The study aims to examine the effects of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) measures on global environment and fertility rate by using the data of 1980 to 2019. The results show that communicable diseases including COVID-19 measures decrease carbon emissions and increase the chances of fertility rates in an account of city-wide lockdown. The knowledge spillover substantially decreases carbon emissions, while high energy demand increases carbon emissions. Poverty incidence increases fertility rate in the short-run; however, in the long-run, the result only supported with vulnerable employment and food prices that lead to increase fertility rates worldwide. The study concludes that besides some high negative externalities associated with COVID-19 pandemic in the form of increasing death tolls and rising healthcare costs, the global world should have to know how to direct high mass carbon emissions and population growth through acceptance of preventive measures, which would be helpful to contain coronavirus pandemic at a global scale.

Social and administrative issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic in Pakistan: better late than never.

The study critically reviewed Pakistan's provincial updates of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and discussed the current challenges faced by the government in a given context. The coronavirus-associated death tolls have been increasing rapidly in a country. The provincial status of confirmed cases of coronavirus is higher in Punjab, followed by the Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), and Balochistan. The case fatality ratio shows that KPK has a higher ratio, i.e., 5.11%, followed by the Punjab, i.e., 1.82%; Sindh, i.e., 1.80%; Balochistan, i.e., 1.28%; Gilgit-Baltistan, i.e., 0.71%; and Federal territory, i.e., 0.66%. The country has a less testing capacity to identify more suspected coronavirus patients. The study calculated that if we increase five times our testing capacity from the current date, the total registered cases will be reached to 137,370 and death tolls will increase up to 3090. It is highly needed to increase testing capacity across Pakistan in order to minimize the outbreak of coronavirus. The provincial government should follow the Federal Government instructions to contain coronavirus by increasing testing capacities, tracing suspected patients, smart lockdowns, emergency relief to the poor, and vigilant monitoring system.