Suchergebnisse

Abstract
The goal of the study here is to analyze and assess whether strict containment policies to cope with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic crisis are effective interventions to reduce high numbers of infections and deaths. A homogenous sample of 31 countries is categorized in two sets: countries with high or low strictness of public policy to cope with COVID-19 pandemic crisis. The findings here suggest that countries with a low intensity of strictness have average confirmed cases and fatality rates related to COVID-19 lower than countries with high strictness in containment policies (confirmed cases are 24.69% vs. 26.06% and fatality rates are 74.33% vs. 76.38%, respectively, in countries with low and high strictness of COVID-19 public policies of containment). What this study adds is that high levels of strict restriction policies may not be useful measures of control in containing the spread and negative impact of pandemics similar to COVID-19 and additionally a high strictness in containment policies generates substantial social and economic costs. These findings can be explained with manifold socioeconomic and environmental factors that support transmission dynamics and circulation of COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, high levels of strictness in public policy (and also a high share of administering new vaccines) seem to have low effectiveness to stop pandemics similar to COVID-19 driven by mutant viral agents. These results here suggest that the design of effective health policies for prevention and preparedness of future pandemics should be underpinned in a good governance of countries and adoption of new technology, rather than strict and generalized health polices having ambiguous effects of containment in society.

How do high restrictions and compulsory measures affect mortality of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and economic growth of countries? This study confronts this question by developing a comparative analysis between countries with high and low level of restrictions against COVID-19 to assess if high levels of restrictions are more effective to reduce negative impact of COVID-19 on health of people and economies. Results show that countries with high restrictions do not decrease mortality per 1,000 people compared to countries with little compulsory measures. In addition, countries with high restrictions have a lower average growth of quarterly Gross Domestic Product than countries with low compulsory measures restrictions. These results can support countries to design balanced and effective restriction policies to cope with COVID-19 and similar pandemic crisis that lessen mortality without deteriorating socioeconomic systems.Keywords. COVID-19; Fatality rate; Economic growth; Government responses; Health policy; Crisis management.JEL. Q10; O31; O33; Q01; Q16; Q18.