COVID-19 POLICY STRINGENCY INDEX
Policy reactions to the COVID-19 emergency have differed from country to country and have also been evolving. The Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford has been tracking responses using a “policy stringency index.” The index is based on seven indicators of stringency: school closings, workplace closings, cancellation of public events, shutting down of public transport, public information campaigns, restrictions on internal movement, and controls on international travel—all given equal weight.
Like any index, this one is arbitrary and imperfect. But it does allow for comparisons across countries. In fact, Blavatnik tracks 112 countries, though only 44 are shown in the chart, which ranks countries by the change between April 3 and May 3 in each country’s stringency index. It also shows where the index stood on May 3.
Among the 44 countries, 17 relaxed their restrictions between April 3 and May 3, 15 tightened them, and a dozen didn’t change them at all.
The biggest tightener was Singapore, which was up 35 points to 82. Germany and Sweden, two countries with reputations for having done well in the crisis—sweden by not being very restrictive—also tightened through April. On May 3, Sweden was up to a stringency index of 58, which is not that far from our own May 3 score of 66.
Notable moderate looseners were us, New Zealand, and Australia. The biggest looseners were Argentina, Russia, South Korea and Austria—though as of May 3 Argentina and Austria were still slightly more stringent in their policies than we were.
Between April 3 and May 3 the United States’ overall stringency index did not change, while in the U.K. it rose slightly. Since May 3, of course, many U.S. states have started to open up businesses and, to a lesser extent, schools.