Does It Make Sense to Quantify a Government’s COVID Performance Solely Based on its Policies?

Summary: No matter how rational a policy could be, if the public refuses to comply with its government, the effectiveness of that policy is reduced. Worse, it may inflame public resentment.

COVID-19 responses vary governments by governments. Some are “slow” to react to the pandemic. Some are “quick” to react to the pandemic. In my biased opinion, as a Taiwanese, I think Taiwan moves beyond fast. I’d call it Warp Speed. Proof? As of now, Taiwan has 9 deaths. This number speaks very loudly. I am happy to go into all the details about the policies, but this is not the topic I wish to explore today.

Here comes the main topic. One day, I came across a working paper published by the University of Oxford titled “Variation in government responses to COVID-19.” This working paper is utterly phenomenal! Outside of my classes at Georgetown SFS, I often read articles that provide various endogenous factors that explain why leaders push for certain policies. This working paper very clearly displays a systematic framework with indicators that quantify a government’s implementation of its policies.

Well, you might be thinking, “Yeah, is there a problem here? I can now give a score to a country of my choice!” This is true. Yet, when I went over this working paper, one question I had in mind was this: Are we ignoring the public’s action-reaction aspect when implementing public health policy?

Let me explain what I mean: Simply quantifying a government’s COVID-19 policies as the sole measurement of how well a government is combating the pandemic seems bewildering to me. After all, the public’s reaction is a product of action-reaction that a government needs to consider. Often times, policies act as complementary to one another (i.e. Your government pays you X amount of money for you to temporarily close your restaurant.) However, what drives those policies forward is actually the degree to which the public supports those policies and the government that carries them. While I support creating a rubric for the purpose of considering a wider range of available options, I doubt any sensible government policies would work if the public has not had the cultural exposure to abide by these policies.

Examples to support my claim include Dutch police use water cannon on anti-government protesters who oppose a coronavirus lockdown and We Are More (W.A.M) called on the public to attend the ‘End Lockdown’. These examples are parallel in that, while the governments want to restrict internal movement as a means of reducing COVID-19 with their administered borders, not all members of the public are willing to oblige by the order. Then, if we are using the “Variation in government responses to COVID-19” to rate the Netherlands and South Africa, should they get a 0, 1, or 2? In other words, equating having the implementation of policy to the success of a government misses that critical piece of puzzle– the public’s attitude.

The takeaway is this: In the realm of studying policies, it makes sense to take into account the public sentiment and the public perception of certain policies. No matter how rational a policy is, if the public does not do what a government wants to do, the effectiveness of that policy is reduced. This means that clearer communication is important in making the implementation of COVID-19 policies more successful.