Protection of EU Citizens and Democracy Challenge

A More Resilient Europe

Comment

More than 110,000 European citizens have died after contracting Coronavirus with more than 1 million confirmed total cases more than in any other continent. Millions of Europeans have applied for unemployment in just the past month, and millions of businesses are at a high risk of bankruptcy—right in the midst of a massive public health crisis. The Coronavirus disease 2019 or (COVID-19) pandemic is having a profound effect on all aspects of society, including short-term and long-term mental health and physical health. The pandemic thus raises difficult questions about whether European Union and liberal democracies can adequately protect their citizens.

There has already been much discussion about whether authoritarian states will emerge stronger from this crisis than democracies. In particular, although the virus originated in China and the government initially seemed to struggle to deal with it, it was able to largely contain the outbreak in Hubei and deploy vast resources from the rest of the country to deal with it.

However, although authoritarian states seem so far to have coped relatively well with the virus, some democracies also succeeded thus far in containing the virus. In fact, some East Asian democracies appear to have done even better than China. At the time of writing South Korea, with a population of 51.5 million, has had only 144 death rates so far. Taiwan, with a population of nearly 24 million, has had only two deaths.

So rather than thinking in terms of the relative performance of authoritarian states and democracies, perhaps instead we should be asking what we in Europe can learn from East Asian democracies.

To beat the virus and stave off future waves of reinfection, and thus protect European citizens and Democracy, we must act NOW and act fast with a predetermined European unity and resolve .To this end, we propose a framework or an agile action plan which will ensure a rapid and optimal design , development, and operation of targeted and measured solutions to beat the virus and save European lives and Democracy.

Share this project:

Updates

posted an update —

More than 110,000 European citizens have died with more than 1 million confirmed total cases more than in any other continent. Millions of Europeans have applied for unemployment in just the past month, and millions businesses are at a great risk of bankruptcy—right in the midst of a massive public health crisis. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is having a profound effect on all aspects of society, including short-term and long-term mental health and physical health. The pandemic thus raises difficult questions about whether European Union and liberal democracies can adequately protect their citizens.

There has already been much discussion about whether authoritarian states will emerge stronger from this crisis than democracies. In particular, although the virus originated in China and the government initially seemed to struggle to deal with it, it was able to largely contain the outbreak in Hubei and deploy vast resources from the rest of the country to deal with it.

However, although authoritarian states seem so far to have coped relatively well with the virus, some democracies also succeeded thus far in containing the virus. In fact, some East Asian democracies appear to have done even better than China. At the time of writing South Korea, with a population of 51.5 million, has had only 144 death rates so far. Taiwan, with a population of nearly 24 million, has had only two deaths.

So rather than thinking in terms of the relative performance of authoritarian states and democracies, perhaps instead we should be asking what we in Europe can learn from East Asian democracies.

To beat the virus and stave off future waves of reinfection, and thus protect European citizens and Democracy, we must act fast NOW with a predetermined European unity and resolve .To this end, we propose a framework or an agile action plan which will ensure a rapid and optimal design , development, and operations of targeted and measured solutions to beat the virus and save European lives and Democracy.

Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.