Finland is among the richest and happiest countries in the world. In spite of cuts in public spending over the past few decades, welfare state arrangements are an important cause of citizens’ satisfaction. Given this, Finland may...

France’s governance of the pandemic crisis, its performances as well as its setbacks, has to be placed into a larger context in two respects: First, when the pandemic hit France, the country was already feeling the effects of a...

The COVID-19 pandemic has delivered Germany’s political, economic and social systems a severe and comprehensive stress test. Judging on the basis of the first year of the pandemic, the country and its institutions have...

The Greek government was initially unprepared to face a crisis on the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic, but ultimately reacted to it swiftly and effectively. Although it did not pursue large-scale testing among the population, it...

Hungary was badly prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic. The country’s crisis management system, healthcare system and education system were already in bad shape, and the Hungarian economy proved vulnerable to the pandemic as a...

The Irish government introduced coronavirus-related restrictions relatively early on 12 March 2020, the day after the WHO declared a global pandemic. This entailed the closure of schools, limitations on economic and social...

Israel’s response to some aspects of the crisis has been a huge failure, to others it was mediocre, and on vaccination policy, it has thus far been a considerable success. As of mid-January 2021, Israel was a world leader in two...

The giant stress test produced by the pandemic has revealed the weaknesses and strengths of the Italian system. The health and economic impacts within the country was particularly severe due to the fact that Italy was the first...

The first major outbreak of coronavirus in Japan occurred following the arrival of the cruise ship “Diamond Princess” in Yokohama on 3 February 2020. A first wave of infections hit the country, stretching from about March to early...

Mexico is one of the countries that has been hardest hit by the coronavirus crisis. According to Reuters, at least 1.7 million people in the country had already died from or with the virus by December 2020, and nearly 79 million...