Comparing Countries On COVID-19 Government Measures

Abstract

From January 2020 onward, many countries around the world adopted government measures with the purpose of restricting the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we initially estimate whether the Greek government was taking measures in relation to the COVID-19 positive test rate and at what distance of days, using the cross-correlation method. For some selected European countries (Cyprus, France, Greece, Ireland, Malta and Norway), we first estimate their correlations with regard to their government measures to see how similarly they reacted to the tightening and the relaxing of measures and, secondly, we estimate at which distance of days their measures had the highest cross-correlation. The Greek government’s measures showed a high correlation with the COVID-19 positive test rate, at a distance of +13 days. This behavior is explained by the fixed weekly-based reassessment of the COVID-19 situation in that country. Mediterranean countries were found to demonstrate similar behavior, a finding we attribute to the fact that their economies are mainly driven by the tourist sector.