Title: Covid-19, economy and the 'drop of honey effect' metaphor - a note on the Portuguese case. Situation and measures

Authors: José António Filipe

Addresses: Department of Mathematics, ISTA – School of Technology and Architecture, University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE-IUL), Avenida das Forças Armadas, 1649-026 Lisboa, Portugal; Information Sciences, Technologies and Architecture Research Center (ISTAR-IUL), University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE-IUL), Portugal; Business Research Unit-IUL (BRU-IUL), University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE-IUL), Portugal

Abstract: Covid-19 appeared in Wuhan (China), by December 2019 and rapidly spread to the rest of the world. Many countries adopted measures against its spread to protect people and national healthcare services. However, at the moment, more than 2.5 million people got infected and more than 175 thousand died in the 213 countries, areas and territories reached by the disease (official records at April 23, 2020). Countries began to adopt also measures to protect the economy and to prepare the economic recovery, once the effects are tremendous worldwide. In Portugal, measures allowed a flattered curve for Covid-19 spread. In this paper, we use an analogy to the 'drop of honey effect' to show how this curve develops. The 'drop of honey effect' is studied in terms of chaos theory and dynamic systems and is used as a framework to the way systems change in social phenomena.

Keywords: Covid-19; SARS-CoV-2; virus; coronavirus; Portugal; economy; measures; 'drop of honey effect'; chaos theory; systems.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBSR.2021.111792

International Journal of Business and Systems Research, 2021 Vol.15 No.1, pp.1 - 13

Received: 25 Apr 2020
Accepted: 29 Apr 2020
Published online: 14 Dec 2020 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article