Risk Management in Public Sector

Dear Colleagues,

Cross-country divergences in COVID-19 pandemic death rates highlighted the importance of public sector risk management. Estimated European COVID-19 mortalities were the lowest in Iceland, with 0.00042 (or 153 deaths for a population of 364,134), while those in Bulgaria (BG) were the highest, with 0.00536 (or 37240 deaths for a population of 6,951,482). Germany fell in the lower middle range, with a COVID-19 mortality rate of 0.00169 (or 141020 for a population of 83,166,711). These figures indicate that the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic has been varied, with some countries being much more severely affected than others. If we were to take the extreme cases of Iceland and Bulgaria, COVID-19 mortality rates would differ by a factor of more than twelve. Similarly, the chance of death from COVID-19 in Bulgaria was three times as high as that in Germany. Suffice to say that Bulgaria was not an isolated outlier in terms of COVID-19 mortality. Other European countries with high COVID-19 mortality rates included Hungary (0.004775), Croatia (003957), Romania (0.003399), Slovakia (0.003691), Czechia (0.00377), and Poland (0.003067). This was closely followed by Belgium (0.002769), which had the highest COVID-19 mortality rate of western EU countries. Seen collectively, these figures are particularly puzzling, given the widespread availability of vaccines across Europe. The aim of this issue is to look at the contribution of public sector risk management to the management of this crisis, and risks in general and identify good practice in public sector risk management, covering areas such as disease prevention, public education, early warning, risk communication and risk assessment.

Prof. Dr. Matthias Beck
Prof. Dr. Andrew Watterson
Topic Editors