Emergency can come into anyone's life at any time. No matter how much you earn / how rich are you / how much net worth you have on a particular day, Emergency do come and can kill you if you have not planned your life or your finances well. The basic principle of personal finance starts with the risk contingency or in other words, how you manage risks you take with life or with your money.

The current COVID-19 situation is a big emergency that we never thought we will see in our lifetimes and is kind of becoming bigger than the recession of recent past, seeing some experts comparing this with great depression time of previous century.

Having said, the individuals who planned for such an emergency in life will get over it smoothly, but the rest of them will undergo a greater pain getting over. With the job losses and many business closures expected in many sectors for the next few quarters, the individuals/companies/ countries who really have the emergency fund (Risk Contingency fund) will get out it quickly compared to the rest.

As a principle, it is recommended that people who work on wages - keep aside a six month paychecks for the Risk Contingency, companies - keep case reserves considering couple of slow quarters & for countries - considering complete lock down scenario.

Recently, having seen people struggling with no pay checks and some owners of businesses crying out loud that they may be out of business soon, it is unfortunate that they did not keep such a fund and took more risks.

I hope everyone will have the time to think about it during the current times, we all are shut at home. Once, things are back to normal, this COVID-19 will serve as  a new reference for the emphasizing everyone of the importance of RISK CONTINGENCY and especially, in finance terms, generate a fund for such eventualities.

P.S: These are just my thoughts and don't refer to any particular country or company or individual.