COVID-19 response measures the effect of national non-pharmaceutical intervention on hospitalizations : an empirical study of governments response to the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Throughout this thesis we will analyze the reaction in the growth rate of COVID-19 related hospitalizations following the implementation of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs), in order to estimate their effectiveness. Additionally, our thesis will investigate the effect of specific NPIs, and the difference in NPI performance throughout the pandemic. Although previous studies have focused on the reproduction number R, case growth, and cumulative deaths as their dependent variable, our thesis focuses on the number of daily COVID-19 related hospitalizations. We believe this to be a more reliable indicator of the spread of infection within the population. In doing so, we use a moving average of daily COVID-19 related hospitalizations as our dependent variable in our analysis. In order to carry out our analysis, we conduct our first regression on 64 events of NPI implementation. We undertake this regression in order to compute the difference in the growth rate of COVID-19 related hospitalizations, before and after NPI implementation. Furthermore, to conduct our second regression, we use the effect of each NPI in place as our dependent variable, which utilizes dummy variables for each active group of NPIs in order to find the effect of each NPI group. Lastly, our concluding regression introduces a final variable to determine if NPIs are getting increasingly more effective throughout the pandemic. For our conclusion, we determine from the results of our event studies that not all NPI implementations were successful, and that the outcome of our second regression indicates that there are extensive differences in the effectiveness of NPIs. We understood from our regression that school closures and lockdown measures are the most effective NPI in order to reduce the growth rate in COVID-19 related hospitalizations. Furthemore, we conclude that the implementation of these NPIs was more effective in reducing the growth rate of COVID-19 related hospitalizations during the first wave of infection.