The COVID-19 outbreak and the municipal administration responses: resource munificence, social vulnerability, and the effectiveness of public actions

Abstract

Facing the unprecedented situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, public officials at the municipality-level have no clear benchmarks or tested policies. In this situation, decision-making becomes a controversial process. This article provides insights for public agents in the Brazilian municipalities to deal with the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyzed the actions taken by city halls of the 52 Brazilian municipalities at least thirty days since the first confirmed case of COVID-19. We used a fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to identify the combinations of contextual factors and public actions that reduced COVID-19 transmission during the critical initial stage. The empirical results show three main paths to guide policy-making: (1) a plural collaboration path involving public and private sectors, operating in a fragile health system; (2) a public action path providing aid programs through intense collaboration inside public bureaucracy; and (3) a resource-based path relying on a well-structured health system.

COVID-19 and the New Normal of Organizations and Employees: An Overview

“…Even at the local level, organizations have become more agile and adaptive, leading to the improved efficiency of operations [55]. Many public organizations collaborated actively and spontaneously with community-based organizations [125] and the private sector [126] for effective responses to the pandemic. Increased collaboration with different stakeholders has allowed organizations to overcome their lack of resources and widen their skill base [126].…”

“…Many public organizations collaborated actively and spontaneously with community-based organizations [125] and the private sector [126] for effective responses to the pandemic. Increased collaboration with different stakeholders has allowed organizations to overcome their lack of resources and widen their skill base [126]. Thus, a crucial contribution of this study is to understand and analyze the impact of COVID-19 on organizations and employees across public, private, and non-profit sectors.…”

Crisis, Urban Fabrics, and the Public Interest: The Israeli Experience

“…Municipalities were able to act within the boundaries charted by the government, and the effectiveness of large public movements was demonstrated by their ability to influence the government (Mendes, 2020). The management of national transportation lines, the delivery of knowledge, medical examinations, and healthcare (Lak et al, 2020), as well as the decision to defer mortgage or rental payments to prevent the evacuation of the unemployed (Mendes, 2020) were government decisions taken and implemented together with additional civic and international bodies (Ito & Pongeluppe, 2020). In other words, coping with large-scale crises requires significant state actions.…”

“…It was revealed that occasional or virtual encounters cannot replace a sound community planning basis. That, marginalized by free choice that justifies "good urbanity" are large populations whose reduced mobility does not enable them to enjoy all that the city has to offer (Sepe, 2021), and that the older and poorer are sicker and otherwise disproportionately weakened in times of lockdown and crisis (Ito & Pongeluppe, 2020;Mendes, 2020). Worst of all, the new and supposedly "urban" public spaces abandoned to entrepreneurial interest were exposed in their inappropriateness.…”

“…Trains and airplanes travelling between metropolises helped spread the virus (Gupta et al, 2021). Within the cities, the highest contagion rates were in poorer neighborhoods (Ito & Pongeluppe, 2020), among other things due to the large number of occupants in each housing unit (Mendes, 2020;Wasdani & Prasad, 2020). The main problem, however, was found with regard to the urban experience, which is based on interactions with strangers outside one's immediate social network, in random encounters in commercial areas, cultural venues, and public transportation.…”