Does timing of government COVID-19 policy interventions matter?

Melodena Stephens, Jose Berengueres, Sridhar Venkatapuram, Immanuel Azaad Moonesar

doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.11.13.20194761

This article is a preprint and has not been certified by peer review [what does this mean?]. It reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice.

PDF: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.13.20194761v1.full.pdf

Abstract

Recent scientific literature and public discussion have asserted that delays in implementing COVID-19 response policies resulted in thousands of preventable infections, and consequent deaths. These studies usually rely on dynamic mathematical models of infectious disease spread such as the well-known S-I-R model.There are few papers in this area. Despite the public interest in government speediness in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have found only 22 studies that examine the timing of interventions. Most studies that do focus on time, compare disease cases or the mortality rates before and after the time a policy is implemented. There are only two comprehensive policy and country studies. As policies have a cascading effect in a pandemic, this is an important topic for research. In this study, we measure if implementing a policy earlier or later relative to three points in time (first Wuhan case, first national disease case, first national death) has any relation to the subsequent higher or lower mortality rates. Based on the analysis of an original dataset of 87 policies across 17 countries (or 1,479 government responses) with the COVID-19 mortality rates of 17 countries we find: (1) No Correlation found between Policy Timing and Mortality Rate; (2) Policies across countries are not implemented with the same urgency; (3) Countries implement policies faster from Wuhan first case; and (4) No correlation between country ranking and country policy timing implementation.The findings also have implications for trans-national coordination of pandemic response policymaking. There is no consensus among countries on the appropriate timing from when an outbreak in a country is announced and when any particular policy should be implemented by other countries. Further the policy responses need to be tailored to country-specific factors existing prior to the onset of the pandemic and perhaps need to consider reinforcing effects of policies (health, economic, social, innovation). There is a lack of data being shared and it is important to note that policy publishing or announcement dates does not mean policy implmentaion nor does it mean the policy had immediate impact.

Competing Interest Statement

All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at www.icmje.org/coi__disclosure.pdf and declare: IAM and MS would like to acknowledge the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research at the World Health Organization for financial support for publishing as part of the Knowledge to Policy (K2P) Center Mentorship Program (BIRD Project).

Funding Statement

We would like to acknowledge the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research at the World Health Organization for financial support as part of the Knowledge to Policy (K2P) Center Mentorship Program (BIRD Project).

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.13.20194761v1