Spain

Based on Statista reports as of April 7, 2020, there have been 52,624 deaths in Europe due to COVID-19 since the first recorded European death in France on February 15. We compared two models to assess the outbreak of coronavirus in the UK, Spain and Belgium, their healthcare expenditure and the number of hospital beds as two indices of the healthcare system. Base and advance exponential smoothing models were used to forecast the total number of new cases and fatalities in the next 15 days for each of the evaluated countries, with an upper and lower banding. The models were fine-tuned with temporal granularity and an adjust seasonality set to seven days. Furthermore, the study assessed the healthcare capacity of these countries by looking at key metrics at a national level and tried to compare them in a relative term by drawing correlations between the total number of cases and fatalities. In addition, the current study compared the three countries according to the KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE and PRACTICE (KAP) system and found the associated similarities. Also, the gaps in KAP on WHO level was appraised. The KAP shortfalls at all levels of international, governmental, organizational and individual levels were recognized. The success of the implementation of any intervention in the prevention of coronavirus epidemics is highly dependent on KAP of people, organizations and governments. Finally, a multicomponent system at international level is proposed to tackle the future infectious pandemics.

EU has developed a plethora of initiatives to deal with the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. From Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) and the so-called Barcelona Process to European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) and Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), different regional programs have been implemented in the Mediterranean region. The diversity and increasing number of countries involved have led to a feel of Mediterranean bazaar with diverging directions. Thus, one question appears to remain unanswered: In what ways have ideational foundations affected the EU initiatives in the Southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea? The research hypothesis states that differences in ideational foundations of the Mediterranean powers, namely, France, Italy and Spain, in moments of crisis have led to the multiplication of initiatives and brought in at times conflicting arrangements between the north and the south of the Mediterranean Sea. The research question was answered under the Constructivist Institutionalism using the qualitative methodology of content analysis.  Research findings reveal that when confronted with moments of self-doubt (crisis), each of the Mediterranean powers has effectuated an institutional change according to its established ideas and cognitive filters.