Citation: Delardas, O.; Kechagias, K.S.; Pontikos, P.N.; Giannos,P. Socio-Economic Impacts and Challenges of the Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19): An Updated Review. Sustainability 2022, 14, 9699. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159699 Academic Editors: Sebastian Saniuk, Tomasz Rokicki and Dariusz Milewski Received: 3 July 2022 Accepted: 3 August 2022 Published: 6 August 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). sustainability Review Socio-Economic Impacts and Challenges of the Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19): An Updated Review Orestis Delardas 1 , Konstantinos S. Kechagias 2,3 , Pantelis N. Pontikos 4,5 and Panagiotis Giannos 2,6, * 1 UCL Energy Institute, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK 2 Society of Meta-Research and Biomedical Innovation, London W12 0BZ, UK 3 Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK 4 Department of Maritime Studies, University of Piraeus, 18534 Athens, Greece 5 Department of History and Archaeology, School of Philosophy, University of Athens, 18534 Athens, Greece 6 Department of Life Sciences, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK * Correspondence: panagiotis.giannos19@imperial.ac.uk; Tel.: +44-7765071907 Abstract: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has shaken up the socio-economic order on a global scale with interventions designed to curb the spread of the disease bearing multiple and reinforcing impacts on several aspects of economic and social lives. The effects of COVID-19 were diverse and often spilled over different or interdependent industries. Economies were hit top-down and bottom-up while businesses and individuals alike endured significant changes that altered national and international supply and demand trends for products and services. The primary and secondary sectors were especially influenced by supply shortages while services and education were largely demand-driven. Monetary policies were specifically targeted to ease these disruptions while protective measures for employees in many cases constrained business competitiveness. The present study provided a cross-sectoral (primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary sectors) outline of the implications and challenges since the start of the crisis, centralising important information and offering a view of the current socio-economic situation. Keywords: economy; society; coronavirus; COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; pandemic 1. Introduction At the beginning of 2020, the world was shaken as an unprecedented global pandemic swept the planet. Since then, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread to all continents throughout the world and has costed the lives of millions of people [1–4]. At present and after the successful rollout of vaccination against Severe Acute Respi- ratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the public discourse remains divided on whether the pandemic is receding [5]. However, the economic implications caused in the last two years are undeniable [6]. Businesses and people across the economy have faced radical changes, as mask mandates and restrictions on travel or mobility were established by authorities across the globe to fight the spread of the virus [7]. A few similar studies have captured the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 amid the initial stages of the emergency but with a marked scarcity of recent studies addressing these in later notes [6,8,9]. Of those described, most have adopted a narrow scope in terms of the countries, industries, or socio-economic context explored while others fell short of addressing the spillover effects on physical and economic wellbeing, overlooking the feedback loops that economic systems or devised interventions may create [10–15]. Taken together, the long-term interpretation of the implications and challenges of COVID-19 becomes limited under these conditions. Capturing the impacts of a health emergency across multiple socio-economic facets is necessary to scope potential determinants and contributing factors that may influence Sustainability 2022, 14, 9699. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159699 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability