Reduced effectiveness of strict containment policies in the presence of pandemic crisis in society and environment

OpenAlex English

Abstract Government-imposed restrictions (e.g., workplace closures, travel bans, face coverings, testing policy, vaccination mandates, etc.) can reduce infections and fatalities of novel infectious diseases, such as COVID-19. However a main gap in literature concerns the following questions and unknown replies: Do high strictness strategies of containment effectively reduce long-term mortality of pandemic diseases? What is the effect of high strictness in containment strategies to face pandemic on society and environment and society? In order to fill this scientific vacuum, the study here compares nations with high and low levels of strictness in containment policy to assess the factual effects on COVID-19 mortality. A homogeneous sample of 31 nations and a newly developed "containment index" (CI), with 100 representing the most stringent restrictions, are used for a comparative statistical analysis. Interestingly, empirical evidence here reveals an inverse relationship between CI score and COVID-19 case fatality rates. In particular, the average COVID-19 cases per capita (24.69% vs. 26.06%) and fatality rates (74.33% vs. 76.38%) were in countries with reduced strictness policies (CI below 50) marginally lower than countries with higher strictness (CI around 60). This surprising finding raises the possibility that better health outcomes in the presence of pandemics may not always result from unduly strict confinement measures that also deteriorate socioeconomic systems. Long-term strategy for controlling future airborne respiratory diseases should be directed to higher health spending and investments in new technologies, especially medical ventilators. The proposed alternative policy offers the potential to mitigate the negative societal and environmental impacts associated with pandemics similar to COVID-19, especially in scenarios where effective drugs are unavailable or require significant R&D time.