A CRITICAL CONTRIBUTION TO THE DISCUSSION ON THE STRATEGY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA IN MANAGING THE FIRST PHASE OF COVID-19 EPIDEMIC

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic is a relatively new and complex phenomenon and every attempt to predict its further course and consequences (not restricted just on the health and economic aspect, but with impact on every other aspect in everyday life) is significantly limited by uncertainties. As the global threat that confronts almost every state on the Earth, every one of them has a task to choose a strategy for preventing virus transmission and mitigating negative consequences, or the approach for managing COVID-19 outbreak. Moreover, every state has to attach importance to the risk management, and primarily to its crucial phase – the risk assessment (all-inclusive process of risk identification, analysis and evaluation) - as a precondition for appropriate decision making in terms of risks and uncertainties. By analysis of the response on the emerging crisis in the Republic of Serbia, or the managing the first phase of the pandemic, the author aims to identify omissions and oversights, with the goal reflected in using the potentials, capacities and resources of the Republic of Serbia in order to choose the most effective and the most adequate response. Furthermore, beside the assessment of implemented approach, the author implicates possible potential that different approach could have regarding the care of the most vulnerable categories of people, but also the urgent need for the-whole-society response and dominant role of the local communities in the response on the crisis. In the conclusion, despite obvious complexity and inherent uncertainty, the correction of the certain measures with the continuous evaluation and upgrading the existing ones could possibly mitigate negative consequences. But, the mentioned would call for the pragmatist approach, for which implementation is necessary to previously meet criteria that are challenges for the most states today (a high level of the trust in state authorities, existence of system able to act simultaneously with the changes in dynamic environment etc.).