![]() Countries also differ in their underlying public health conditions, and as such have varying degrees of sensitivity to an outbreak, which in addition may affect their ability to handle the spread. There are of course many explanations for why there is variation between countries in their implementation of COVID-19 transmission mitigation policies, most obviously that they were differently exposed to the virus at specific points in time. While medical researchers and public decision makers struggle to understand and handle questions related to the effectiveness of these policy measures, a key task for social scientists is to explain why decision makers in states responded the way they did during the early outbreak of the pandemic. Why did countries adopt very different COVID-19 disease prevention policies at different points in time? We discuss the reasons for such decision making, how it differs across countries with various government structures, and what top decisions makers can learn from this. A key finding is that countries seem to have engaged in a game of follow-my-leader, where one country based its policy decisions on the policy decisions of their neighbours. It is thus of vital interest to decisions makers at large to ponder why and how such policies were enacted in their country, region and domain of interest, and the effectiveness of various policies in preventing the spread of the infections disease.Ī comprehensive study we carried out during the spring reveals some interesting patterns of when various COVID-19 disease prevention policies were enacted among OECD countries. Most COVID-19 disease prevention policies have since been rolled back in many countries but are likely to remain in policy-makers' toolboxes for a 'second wave' of the virus, as well as for future pandemics. These policies generally focus on increasing social distancing among citizens and range from public health recommendations and information campaigns to radical restrictions on citizens' movement and behavior, including school and workplace closures, travel and transportation restrictions, curfews and quarantines. This article analyzes the adoption timing of various disease prevention policies across the OECD during the spring of 2020 and discusses these patterns as an example of public officials' decision making under time pressure and extreme uncertainty.įollowing the COVID-19 outbreak, unprecedented policy decisions have been implemented by countries worldwide to slow the spread of the contagious SARS-CoV-2 virus. ![]() Why and how countries initiate policies aimed to mitigate COVID-19 disease transmission is a key issue for decision makers and anyone affected by these policies. As the pandemic spread, one country after the other was faced with deciding which disease prevention policies to introduce when The authors of this article find that rather than each country making an independent assessment based on epidemiological factors, policy timing seems to have been more influenced by the decisions that neighbours took.Ībiel Sebhatu, Karl Wennberg, Stefan Arora -Jonsson, and Staffan I Lindberg ![]()
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