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The paper aims to disentangle the factors behind territorial disparities in the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) case fatality ratio, focusing on the pressure put by the pandemic on healthcare services and adopting a spatial perspective.

Multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) models have been used for uncovering the spatial variability in the impact of healthcare services on COVID-19 case fatality ratio, allowing authors to better capture the real spatial patterns at local level. The authors proved that this approach yields better results, and the MGWR model outperforms traditional regression methods. The selected case studies are two of the biggest UE countries, among the first affected by a high incidence of COVID-19 cases, namely Italy and Germany.

The authors found sizeable regional differences in COVID-19 mortality rates within each of the analysed countries, and the stress borne by local healthcare systems seems to be the most powerful factor in explaining them. In line with other studies, the authors found additional factors of influence, such as age distribution, gender ratio, population density and regional development.

This research clearly indicated that COVID-19 related deaths are strongly associated with the degree of resilience of the local healthcare systems. The authors supply localized results on the factors of influence, useful for assisting the decision-makers in prioritizing limited healthcare resources. The authors provide a scientific argument in favour of the decentralization of the pandemic management towards local authorities not neglecting, however, the necessary regional or national coordination.

The recent period, also called the “era of algorithms”, has brought remarkable transformations both in personal life and in the way of doing business. Developing and implementing digital technologies depend on the availability of human capital, a resource that is increasingly difficult to find. Countries are in competition for this resource, and attracting talent has become a goal often difficult to achieve. In this context, the current chapter seeks to evaluate human capital contribution to the digital competitiveness of the EU countries and to describe the moderating role of digitization in the development of human capital through migration management. Investigating the digital competitiveness of the EU countries, we demonstrated that the most important driver of the major differences between these countries is human capital. In this context, migration becomes both an opportunity and a threat, and its digital management is of tremendous importance.