Mutual Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Recent Earthquakes: A Scoping Review of the Lessons Learned

Abstract

Abstract Objective: The aim of this study was to review the articles dealing with the mutual impacts of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the recent earthquakes to elicit the various scopes of the lessons learned including the challenges, the successful measures, and the recommendations. Methods: To detect the relevant studies published between February 1, 2020, and June 9, 2021, PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar were searched. Having considered specific inclusion/exclusion criteria, 18 studies were included. Results: Seven major earthquakes have occurred concurrently or before the pandemic era in Albania, Croatia, Haiti, Great East Japan, Mexico, Nepal, and Utah. Thematic analysis revealed 5 themes for the “challenges” (management inefficiency, increased life-threatening, economic, socially related, and dual psychological challenges); 4 themes for the “efficient response measures” (health-care services measures, government measures, community-based cooperative activities, and disaster management response); and 3 major themes with 7 sub-themes for the “recommendations” including “the mitigation phase” (identifying probable natural disasters), “the preparedness phase” (preparing necessary equipment), and “the response phase” (mental care response measures, health-care-related COVID-19 measures, economic improvement measures, recognizing community-based capabilities, and government-related boosting measures). Conclusions: It is suggested that these scopes of the mutual impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the earthquakes be studied in systematic reviews.