An Overview of Social Policies to Cope with the COVID-19 Pandemic in the World and in Vietnam

Abstract

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in the end of 2019 has significantly influenced people and nations worldwide. In order to cope with this pandemic, every country in the world has issued social policies to overcome the adverse effects of the pandemic on different social groups. By using the secondary data analysis and analysis of policy contents, this paper provided an overall picture of social policies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the world and Vietnam. The results showed a prompt reaction of the government in every country and in Vietnam in enacting policies on employment, health care, housing, insurance and other forms of social protection for different social groups who have been strongly affected by the COVID-19. However, those policies are not systematic and the target groups have not been adequate yet. Moreover, there is a lack of social policies to cope with the COVID-19 in the long run, especially after the lockdown period and in the “new normal situation” period. On that basis, the authors suggested several research topics that will be a helpful base for proposing the next social policies, which will be suitable for the new development stage of the pandemic, as well as for specific situations of each nation and area. Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, social policies to cope with COVID-19, in the world, Vietnam.