Our business and financial results could be negatively impacted by COVID-19 or other pandemics or epidemics. The severity, magnitude and duration of global or regional pandemics or epidemics are uncertain and hard to predict. Since 2020, COVID-19 has significantly impacted economic activity and markets around the world, and it could negatively impact our business in numerous ways. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted and could materially disrupt our global supply chain, operations and routes to market or those of our suppliers, their suppliers, our external manufacturing partners, distributors or other business partners. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in broader supply, transportation and labor disruptions resulting in inflation and generally higher operating costs in our business. Relatedly, commodity and transportation costs have become more volatile and generally increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain disruptions, and transportation and labor shortages. Additionally, government or regulatory responses to pandemics could negatively impact our business. Mandatory lockdowns or other restrictions on operations in some countries temporarily disrupted our ability to distribute our products in some markets. Resumption, continuation or expansion of these disruptions could materially adversely impact our operations and results.
These and other impacts of the COVID-19 or other global or regional health pandemics or epidemics could have the effect of heightening many of the other risks described in the risk factors presented in this filing, including but not limited to those relating to our reputation, brands, consumer preferences, supply chain, product sales, pricing actions, results of operations or financial condition. We might not be able to predict or respond to all impacts on a timely basis to prevent near- or long-term adverse impacts to our results. The ultimate impact of these disruptions also depends on events beyond our knowledge or control, including the duration and severity of the COVID-19 and other pandemics or epidemics and actions taken by parties other than us to respond to them, and in the case of COVID-19, on the emergence and spread of COVID-19 variants and the effectiveness of vaccines. Any of these disruptions could have a negative impact on our business operations, financial performance, results of operations and stock price, and this impact could be material.