The countries that are suffering economically did not just happen just because of the pandemic, it played a part but the most important aspect is the constant bad decisions by the government for several years that have taken them to a situation where they want to depend upon other countries to restructure their loans, in the case of Sri Lanka, they have taken huge loans from China and if China decides they can restructure their loan. Inflation has caught up big time and we understand that Sri Lanka is struggling really bad at this moment.
It is the same story everywhere. Populist governments around the world are constantly splurging money on welfare schemes, which have no long term impact on the ground. Apart from some short term benefits, these schemes make people more and more unproductive and enslaved to the government handouts. The federal debt rises beyond a sustainable limit as a result of these actions, and in the long term it weakens the national currency and the local economy. In this case Sri Lanka spent tens of billions of USD on wasteful infra projects with zero returns, in addition to welfare schemes.