The efficacy of "ESG" vaccine: Does it help investors in fight against the Covid-19 pandemic?

As many traditional investors consider augmenting their asset allocation with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores, assets under management in socially responsible funds have grown dramatically (Pastor et al., 2019, Pedersen et al., 2020). While there is a growing debate over the benefits and cost of ESG investing in recent years (Cornell, 2020; Dumitrescu et al., 2020; Madhavan et al., 2020), scholars and investment community are yet to firmly establish how important the ESG factors are for investors. Now, more than ever, with the heightening public attention to issues such as social injustice, climate change, etc., many companies are going woke. This means that there is a larger ESG-based investment opportunity set available to investors than ever before. It is thus, but, natural to wonder: Did the Covid-19 pandemic have an impact on investors' attention to the ESG information? With the pandemic-induced market downtrend and accompanying high market volatility, there was certainly a conducive environment for possibly a dramatic shift in investors' preferences. Has the pandemic further accelerated ESG investing because investors are demanding more stocks of companies that respond to the crisis by focusing on long-term goals, rather than prioritizing near-term profit at all costs?