Public policy lessons from the Covid-19 outbreak: How to deal with it in the post-pandemic world?
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Public policy lessons from the Covid‑19 outbreak: How to deal with it in the post‑pandemic world? Syed Abul Basher1 · A. K. Enamul Haque1 Accepted: 14 October 2020 © Institute for Social and Economic Change 2020
Abstract Using cumulative confirmed cases of Covid-19 covering 163 countries, this paper tests several hypotheses that have received extensive attention in the popular media and academic research during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Our goal is to identify lessons for designing better public health policies in the post-pandemic era based on the past 6 months’ experiences of these 163 countries. Based on 2SLS regression, we derive the following lessons. First, providing universal health care is a significant public health strategy for countries to help deal with similar outbreaks in the future. Second, tackling air pollution is a win–win solution, not only for better preparedness against Covid-19 or other airborne diseases, but also for the environment and climate change. Third, lockdowns may help to reduce community spread, but its impact on reducing Covid-19 incidence is not statistically significant. Similarly, antimalarial drugs have no significant effect on reducing the spread of the disease. Fourth, countries should encourage home-based work as much as possible until some treatment or cure is found for the virus. Fifth, the lessons of past SARS experience helped contain the spread of the infection in East Asian countries; other countries must adjust their social and cultural life to the new normal: wearing masks, washing hands, and keeping a distance from others in public places. Keywords COVID-19 pandemic · Universal health care · Air pollution · Public policy
Introduction What began as a seemingly isolated case of the phenomenon in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, led to a global coronavirus pandemic in early March 2020? The coronavirus outbreak is reminiscent of past global epidemics like SARS and MERS in 2002 and 2012, respectively. However, after 774 deaths around the world, SARS was brought under control or the virus simply vanished through the process of mutations. Although MERS has not been entirely eliminated yet, to date, it has killed 858 people and its spread remains * Syed Abul Basher [email protected] A. K. Enamul Haque [email protected] 1
Department of Economics, East West University, Dhaka, Bangladesh
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Vol.:(0123456789)
Journal of Social and Economic Development
localized in Saudi Arabia and South Korea (The Economist 2020a). Finally, the recent outbreak, which is called SARS-Cov-2 or Covid-19, has been aptly dubbed by the Economist as “third time unlucky”. As of the time of writing (23 July 2020), Covid-19 is now responsible for over 600,000 deaths and over 15 million confirmed cases of infection.1 Two of the most widely tracked outcomes of the coronavirus pandemic are the number of registered Covid-19 cases and the number of Covid-19 deaths. Another crucial parameter, the reproduction number, is not observed and is mathematically complex and computationally e
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