It was December 31, 2019 when WHO was alerted of an unusual respiratory disease spreading around Wuhan, China. Seven (7) months and a name later, coronavirus disease, or COVID-19, has infected an estimate of 17 million people in over 200 countries.
To date, most countries have had the situation under control, however, it is inevitable to have a few that are still struggling.
In this report, we will focus on the government actions that led nations to their current status in the battle against COVID-19.
Variables
The primary measure used in this report is mortality rate. According to Leslie et al. (2020) of Story Lab, death count is a better measure compared to number of cases. This is due to that the former is highly dependent to the capability of the countries to conduct testing, which highly differs across the board.
In using the mortality count in this report, per capita statistics will not be utilized. According to the same group, population count is negligible for diseases that grow on an exponential rate. In this vein, only linear and log chart will be used for comparison.
Source: John Hopkins University
However, this is not to say our chosen method is perfect. The variance in death count can also be attributed to demography (i.e. older population will have higher death rate), characteristics of the health care system, and others.
These countries were chosen due to various reasons. Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, and South Korea are the countries who had the spread of the disease under control comparably early (Leslie et al., 2020). On the other hand, United States have an incredibly high rate of infection (Leslie et al., 2020), Brazil, India, and Russia still have a continuously upward trend on the number of new cases and new deaths (Leslie et al., 2020), and ultimately, Ecuador, Peru, and United Kigndom have the highest excess deaths around the world (Financial Times, 2020).
The Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University has been monitoring the implementation of COVID-19-related policies, and have come up with three (3) indices that measure the degree of government action. All indices measure from 0 to 100, with 0 as the most relaxed or minimal, and 100 as the most restrictive or generous.
This should not, however, be read as a measure of policy effectiveness. These indices shall only serve as guides on informing oneself on the type of policy action taken by any particular national government unit.
Movement Stringency. Containment and closure policies, which includes closure of schools and workplaces, cancellation of public events, restrictions on gathering in groups, closure of public transportation, stay-at-home requirements, and restrictions on internal movement and international travel.
Health Measures. Focused on policies related to testing, contact tracing, investment in emergency health care and vaccine development, and even conduct of public information campaign.
Economic Support. Pertains to the government assistance such as income support, debt or contract relief for households, extension of support to other countries, and many other fiscal measures.
Visualization According to Stringency and New Death Count
The increase in the number of new deaths of South Korea and Vietnam has been flattened since they started implementing high movement stringency policy past March. In countries such as the US, the UK, Ecuador, India, and Brazil, strict policies began after April, yet high new death counts were still observed. In Germany, the new death counts temporarily increased but decreased after June, as the country acted strict policy early (economic support policy added after April).
The overall trend is similar with the US and the UK, but the size of new death counts is lower.
In general, movement and health stringency are similar, and there is a slight difference on economic stringency among the chosen countries.
Inferences
Stringent actions are merited only when done early enough. This is the case for Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, and South Korea. They are the countries that acted (implemented stringent measures) early, which ultimately resulted to lower count of new deaths later on.
Late action is the bane to getting the situation under control. Such is what we have witnessed on United States, Brazil, India, Russia, Ecuador, Peru and United Kingdom. Although it is evident that these countries eventually implemented stringent measures, the timing was already considered late.
Data Sources
Country Statistics. Taken from Our World in Data by Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford
