COVID-19 and Government Responses (original) (raw)
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Government responses and COVID-19 deaths: Global evidence across multiple pandemic waves
PLOS ONE, 2021
We provide an assessment of the impact of government closure and containment measures on deaths from COVID-19 across sequential waves of the COVID-19 pandemic globally. Daily data was collected on a range of containment and closure policies for 186 countries from January 1, 2020 until March 11th, 2021. These data were combined into an aggregate stringency index (SI) score for each country on each day (range: 0–100). Countries were divided into successive waves via a mathematical algorithm to identify peaks and troughs of disease. Within our period of analysis, 63 countries experienced at least one wave, 40 countries experienced two waves, and 10 countries saw three waves, as defined by our approach. Within each wave, regression was used to assess the relationship between the strength of government stringency and subsequent deaths related to COVID-19 with a number of controls for time and country-specific demographic, health system, and economic characteristics. Across the full perio...
Containing the COVID-19 Pandemic: What Determined the Speed of Government Interventions?
Social Science Research Network, 2020
This paper examines the speed with which governments introduced lockdown measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. We use data on daily confirmed COVID-19 cases and related deaths combined with information on containment measures available for 124 countries as well as a range of annual country-specific data. In terms of methodology, we estimate time-to-event models to analyse the speed of starting government containment measures and the speed with which such measures reached their highest level from the first confirmed COVID-19 case and the first COVID-19 related death. Our results indicate that governments in countries with a weaker health system capacity and in countries with a larger share of elderly populations were more likely to start lockdown measures faster. Smaller and more open economies were more likely to move faster to the highest level of containment measures.
Effectiveness of government policies in response to the first COVID-19 outbreak
PLOS global public health, 2022
This paper assesses the quantitative impact of government interventions on deaths related to the first COVID-19 outbreak. Using daily data for 32 countries and relying on the stringency of the conducted policies, we find that the greater the strength of government interventions at an early stage, the more effective these are in slowing down or reversing the growth rate of deaths. School closures have a significant impact on reducing the growth rate of deaths, which is less powerful compared to the case where a number of policy interventions are combined together. These results can be informative for governments in responding to future pandemics.
Effects of government policies on the spread of COVID-19 worldwide
Scientific Reports
The outbreak of novel COVID-19 disease elicited a wide range of anti-contagion and economic policies like school closure, income support, contact tracing, and so forth, in the mitigation and suppression of the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. However, a systematic evaluation of these policies has not been made. Here, 17 implemented policies from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker dataset employed in 90 countries from December 31, 2019, to August 31, 2020, were analyzed. A Poisson regression model was applied to analyze the relationship between policies and daily confirmed cases using a generalized estimating equations approach. A lag is a fixed time displacement in time series data. With that, lagging (0, 3, 7, 10, and 14 days) was also considered during the analysis since the effects of policies implemented on a given day may affect the number of confirmed cases several days after implementation. The countries were divided into three groups depending on the number of wa...
ABSTRACTObjectiveThough the speed of policy interventions is critical in responding to a fast spreading pandemic, there is little research on this topic. This study aims to (1) review the state of research on the topic (2) compile an original dataset of 87 COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical interventions across 17 countries and (3) analyses the timing of COVID-19 policy interventions on mortality rates of individual countries.DesignStatistical analysis using Excel and R language version 3.4.2 (2017-09-28) of 1479 non-pharmaceutical policy interventions data points.SettingChina, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Germany, Canada, India, United Arab Emirates, United States of America, South Africa, Egypt, Jordan, France, Iran, United Kingdom and Italy.Population36 health policies, 19 fiscal policies; 8 innovation policies; 19 social distancing policies, and 5 travel policies – related to COVID-19.InterventionsWe calculate the time (time-lag) between the start date of a policy and thre...
First Quarter Chronicle of COVID-19: An Attempt to Measure Governments’ Responses
Risks, 2020
The crisis caused by the outbreak of COVID-19 revealed the global unpreparedness for handling the impact of a pandemic. In this paper, we present a first quarter chronicle of COVID-19 in Hubei China, Italy and Spain, particularly focusing on infection speed, death and fatality rates. By analysing the parameters of the best fitting distributions of the available data for the three rates in each of the three regions, we illustrate the pandemic’s evolution in relation to government measures. We compared the effectiveness of lockdown measures by observing the true situation in each dataset, without proposing a mathematical model. The feasibility of obtaining a firm conclusion in regard to the best solution for containing COVID-19 is limited, with a universal solution failing to exist due to globally varying culture, mentality and behaviours. Our method provides valid insights into the individual and national actions implemented and adhered to in order to slow the effect of the pandemic ...
Early adoption of non-pharmaceutical interventions and COVID-19 mortality
Economics & Human Biology, 2021
To contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries around the globe have adopted social distancing measures. Yet, establishing the causal effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) is difficult because they do not occur arbitrarily. We exploit a quasi-random source of variation for identification purposes-namely, regional differences in the placement on the pandemic curve following an unexpected and nationwide lockdown. Our results reveal that regions where the outbreak had just started when the lockdown was implemented had 1.62 fewer daily deaths per 100,000 inhabitants when compared to regions for which the lockdown arrived 10+ days after the pandemic's outbreak. As a result, a total of 4,642 total deaths (232 deaths/daily) could have been avoided by the end of our period of study-a figure representing 23% of registered deaths in Spain at the time. We rule out differential preÀCOVID mortality trends and self-distancing behaviors across the compared regions prior to the swift lockdown, which was also uniformly observed nationwide. In addition, we provide supporting evidence for contagion deceleration as the main mechanism behind the effectiveness of the early adoption of NPIs in lowering the death rate, rather than an increased healthcare capacity.
COVID 19: A cross-country study of the impact of timely measures on the initial phase of the disease spread, 2020
This study examines the effects of the lockdown and travel ban measures on the spread of COVID 19 disease in early 2020, as observed across countries and through time. Data on the daily reported new cases across 57 countries for a period of 30 days after the first reported case were used and an overall conclusion is drawn on the effect of the two measures. Using a panel data methodology and controlling the individual unobserved country effects, as well as time effects on the spread of the disease, the effects of the measures applied is isolated and an overall result is reported. As per the methodology followed, the variation across countries is considered with respect to the application of measures or not, as well as the timing of the application of these measures within individual countries. The measures examined are significant with regards to their effect on the spread of the disease, while both measures, when applied early and in conjunction lead to a cumulative decrease of the rate of change on the daily reported new cases of around 8%. Moreover, the application of measures by countries mostly affected by the disease, is able to mitigate the spread after two weeks, bringing the daily new cases rate of increase down to levels comparable to countries with lower initial rates of increase.
2021
COVID-19 pandemic raises an extraordinary challenge to the healthcare systems globally. The governments are taking key measures to constrain the corresponding health, social, and economic impacts, however, these measures vary depending on the nature of the crisis and country-specific circumstances. Objectives: Considering different incidence and mortality rates across different countries, we aimed at explaining variance of these variables by performing accurate and precise multivariate analysis with aid of suitable predictors, accordingly, the model would proactively guide the governmental responses to the crisis. Methods: Using linear and exponential time series analysis, this research aimed at studying the incidence and mortality rates of COVID-19 in 18 countries during the first six months of the pandemic, and further utilize multivariate techniques to explain the variance in monthly exponential growth rates of cases and deaths with aid of a set of different predictors: the recor...
How to Minimize the Impact of Pandemic Events: Lessons From the COVID-19 Crisis
2020
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is responsible for the current pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This pandemic is characterized by a high variability in death rate (defined as the ratio between the number of deaths and the total number of infected people) across world countries. Several possible explanations have been proposed, but it is not clear whether this variability is due to a single predominant factor or instead to multiple causes. Here we addressed this issue using multivariable regression analysis to test the impact of the following factors: the hospital stress (defined as the ratio between the number of infected cases and the total number of hospital beds), the population median age, and the quality of the National Health System (NHS). For this analysis, we chose countries of the world with over 3000 infected cases as of April 1, 2020. Hospital stress was found to be the crucial factor in explaining the variability of death rate, while the others had negligible relevance. Different procedures for quantifying cases of infection and death for COVID-19 could affect the variability in death rate across countries. We therefore applied the same statistical approach to Italy, which is divided into 20 Regions that share the same protocol for counting the outcomes of this pandemic. Correlation between hospital stress and death rate was even stronger than that observed for countries of the world. Based on our findings and the historical trend for the availability of hospital beds, we propose guidelines for policy-makers to properly manage future pandemics.