Explaining the homogeneous diffusion of COVID-19 nonpharmaceutical interventions across heterogeneous countries

Sebhatu, Abiel; Wennberg, Karl; Jönsson, Sten; Lindberg, Staffan I.

doi:10.1073/pnas.2010625117

Cited by 193 publications

(230 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…However, in real world settings, most countries adopted similar sets of policies within a short span of time despite these vast sets of possibilities. For example, Sebhatu et al 5 note that "almost 80% of OECD countries adopted the same COVID-19 NPIs within a span of 2 w[ee]k[s]. " They find that rather than accounting for country specific characteristics, policymakers set policies based on "…the number of earlier adopters in the same region. "…”

Section: Community Mobility Google's Covid-19 Community Mobility Repmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the world implemented varying degrees of nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to control the spread of the disease [1][2][3][4][5] . These policies severely restricted movement, public gatherings, national and international travel, and shut down large parts of the economy including schools and non-essential businesses.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Preparing for a future COVID-19 wave: insights and limitations from a data-driven evaluation of non-pharmaceutical interventions in Germany

Aravindakshan

Boehnke

Gholami

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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To contain the COVID-19 pandemic, governments introduced strict Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPI) that restricted movement, public gatherings, national and international travel, and shut down large parts of the economy. Yet, the impact of the enforcement and subsequent loosening of these policies on the spread of COVID-19 is not well understood. Accordingly, we measure the impact of NPIs on mitigating disease spread by exploiting the spatio-temporal variations in policy measures across the 16 states of Germany. While this quasi-experiment does not allow for causal identification, each policy’s effect on reducing disease spread provides meaningful insights. We adapt the Susceptible–Exposed–Infected–Recovered model for disease propagation to include data on daily confirmed cases, interstate movement, and social distancing. By combining the model with measures of policy contributions on mobility reduction, we forecast scenarios for relaxing various types of NPIs. Our model finds that in Germany policies that mandated contact restrictions (e.g., movement in public space limited to two persons or people co-living), closure of educational institutions (e.g., schools), and retail outlet closures are associated with the sharpest drops in movement within and across states. Contact restrictions appear to be most effective at lowering COVID-19 cases, while border closures appear to have only minimal effects at mitigating the spread of the disease, even though cross-border travel might have played a role in seeding the disease in the population. We believe that a deeper understanding of the policy effects on mitigating the spread of COVID-19 allows a more accurate forecast of disease spread when NPIs are partially loosened and gives policymakers better data for making informed decisions.

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Section: Community Mobility Google's Covid-19 Community Mobility Repmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Preparing for a future COVID-19 wave: insights and limitations from a data-driven evaluation of non-pharmaceutical interventions in Germany

Aravindakshan

Boehnke

Gholami

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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“…Interestingly, those with high government effectiveness were slower to implement such policies [36] as were the more right-leaning governments [37]. Further, more democratic countries have tended to be more sensitive to the domestic policy decisions of other countries [38]. Regardless, the need to understand the reasons behind the selection of some policy instruments and not others [36] and the associated timing of such decisions is warranted to enable the development and implementation of more appropriate policy…”

Section: Politicalmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Does Globalization Affect COVID-19 Responses?

Bickley

Chan

Skali

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Background: The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the vast differences in approaches to the control and containment of coronavirus across the world and has demonstrated the varied success of such approaches in minimizing the transmission of coronavirus. While previous studies have demonstrated high predictive power of incorporating air travel data and governmental policy responses in global disease transmission modelling, factors influencing the decision to implement travel and border restriction policies have attracted relatively less attention. This paper examines the role of globalization on the pace of adoption of international travel-related non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) during the coronavirus pandemic. This study aims to offer advice on how to improve the global planning, preparation, and coordination of actions and policy responses during future infectious disease outbreaks with empirical evidence.Results: The results of our survival analysis suggest that more globalized countries, accounting for the country-specific timing of the virus outbreak and other factors, are quicker to adopt international travel restrictions policies. However, countries with high government effectiveness were more cautious in the implementation of travel restrictions if they are more globalized, particularly if through formal political and trade policy integration. This finding is supported by a placebo analysis on domestic NPIs, where such a relationship is absent. Additionally, we find that globalized countries with high state capacity are more likely to have higher numbers of confirmed cases by the time a first restriction policy measure was taken. Conclusions: The findings highlight the dynamic relationship between globalization and protectionism when governments respond to significant global events such as a public health crisis. We suggest that the observed caution of policy implementation by countries with high government efficiency and globalization is a by-product of commitment to existing trade agreements, a greater desire to ‘learn from others’ and also perhaps of ‘confidence’ in a government’s ability to deal with a pandemic through its health system and state capacity. Our results suggest further research is warranted to explore whether global infectious disease forecasting could be improved by including the globalization index and in particular, the de jure trade and political (sub)dimensions and de facto interpersonal and cultural (sub)dimensions of globalization. By acting as proxies for a countries’ likelihood and speed of implementation for international travel restriction policies, such measures may predict the likely time delays in disease emergence and transmission across national borders.

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“…To dampen the spread of COVID-19 1 , public authorities have taken a range of measures including recommendations or restrictions of behaviours, all of which require adjustments concerning different daily behaviours (Anderson et al, 2020;Hale et al, 2020;Sebhatu et al, 2020). Scholars worldwide have sought to obtain more insights into individuals' compliance with such recommendations or restrictions.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Hygiene and social distancing as distinct public health related behaviours among university students during the COVID-19 pandemic

Wismans

Letina

Thurik

et al. 2020

Soc. Psychol. Bull.

Self Cite

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Prevailing research on individuals’ compliance with public health related behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic tends to study composite measures of multiple types of behaviours, without distinguishing between different types of behaviours. However, measures taken by governments involve adjustments concerning a range of different daily behaviours. In this study, we seek to explain students’ public health related compliance behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic by examining the underlying components of such behaviours. Subsequently, we investigate how these components relate to individual attitudes towards public health measures, descriptive norms among friends and family, and key demographics. We surveyed 7,403 university students in ten countries regarding these behaviours. Principal Components Analysis reveals that compliance related to hygiene (hand washing, coughing behaviours) is uniformly distinct from compliance related to social distancing behaviours. Regression analyses predicting Social Distancing and Hygiene lead to differences in explained variance and type of predictors. Our study shows that treating public health compliance as a sole construct obfuscates the dimensionality of compliance behaviours, which risks poorer prediction of individuals’ compliance behaviours and problems in generating valid public health recommendations. Affecting these distinct behaviours may require different types of interventions.

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Explaining the homogeneous diffusion of COVID-19 nonpharmaceutical interventions across heterogeneous countries

Cited by 193 publications

References 58 publications

Preparing for a future COVID-19 wave: insights and limitations from a data-driven evaluation of non-pharmaceutical interventions in Germany

Preparing for a future COVID-19 wave: insights and limitations from a data-driven evaluation of non-pharmaceutical interventions in Germany

How Does Globalization Affect COVID-19 Responses?

Hygiene and social distancing as distinct public health related behaviours among university students during the COVID-19 pandemic

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