COVID-19 pandemic is a virus-related natural disaster. The COVID-19 pandemic was detected in 2019 in Wuhan in China and then spread to Hong Kong and then other countries, as it has considerably broader reach in terms of numbers of both countries and people affected than other virus-related disasters (Hassan et al. 2020). The possible reason for this global contagion is the increased integration of the global social and economic supply chain linkages so entrenched in the globalized ecosystem since 1980s. These previous virus-related pandemics including Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) (2002-03), Swine Flu (2009-10), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) (2012-13), Ebola (2014-15), and Zika (2016) had a relatively high mortality but low infection rates compared to COVID-19 that is highly contagious but relatively less fatal but generating greater economic losses due to its prolonged persistence (Verikios et al., 2011). The prolonged nature of this pandemic has halted the global economy and caused substantial socio-economic adversities in all economies, albeit more in emerging and developing economies that have greater vulnerabilities of poor population, lack of financial resources and infrastructure to provide reasonable health services in normal times, let alone during pandemics. COVID-19 have beaten them all by affecting the economy and financial systems of almost 211 countries, with more than 50 million diagnosed and 1.2 million deaths at the point of writing this article (November 2020). This pandemic has contributed to mass economic destruction due to total and partial lockdowns of the economy, economic disruption through reduction of output or even closure of factories and increase in unemployment. Since the pandemic is global, the export-oriented economies suffer greatly as importing countries reduce their imports due to decrease in demand for goods and services.
