5.2 Public health measures to contain the pandemic Ngā tikanga hauora tūmatanui hei aukati i te horapa o te urutā
5.2. Public health measures to contain the pandemic | Ngā tikanga hauora tūmatanui hei aukati i te horapa o te urutā
Governments around the world responded to the COVID-19 pandemic with a wide range of measures, including border closures and stay-at-home orders, as well as support for communities, businesses and the economy through a period of disruption. The most widely used metric of countries' responses was created by the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford.
5.2.1 Tracking the stringency of public health measures | Te aroturuki i te kaha o ngā tikanga hauora tūmatanui
The Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker is made up of 25 indicators. Nine of these contribute to the Stringency Index, which measures the stringency of a government's response. This includes use of school closures, workplace closures and travel bans. The index ranges from 0 (least stringent) to 100 (most stringent).
When we look across the whole of the period from 2020 to 2023, New Zealand's response was one of the least stringent of the 183 countries for which this measure is available (Figure 46). In our comparison group of countries, China had by far the most stringent policies. Italy's response was the next most stringent, followed by the United States and the United Kingdom. Sweden's was notably different from its European neighbours, in that it did not lock down its society in the early days of the pandemic. Nevertheless, over the four-year period, Sweden had a more stringent response than New Zealand.
Figure 46: COVID-19 policies: Composite Stringency Index, average 2020–2023
New Zealand tended to go for short, stringent interventions, which explains to some degree its relatively low stringency score in Figure 46. This can be seen in Figure 47, which tracks the stringency index for New Zealand and our comparator countries (plus South Korea) from January 2020 through to December 2022.
Figure 47: COVID-19 Composite Stringency Index, by vaccination status, 2020–2022
[Chart image showing multiple line graphs for New Zealand, Australia, China, Italy, Japan, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States, and South Korea, displaying stringency over time with lines for non-vaccinated, vaccinated, and weighted average]
Source: Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford (2023), Our World in Data
Figure 47 shows that this pattern of response was in place until August 2021, after which New Zealand's response was similar to that of other countries, excepting China.
One theme that emerges from Figure 47 is that with the arrival of widespread vaccination in 2021 (see section 5.3, below), many countries began to differentiate between those who were vaccinated and those who were not. This was particularly the case in Italy, where the stringency index for those who were not vaccinated was almost twice that for those who were vaccinated from mid-2021 to mid-2022.
5.2.2 Types of public health measures used | Ngā momo tikanga hauora tūmatanui i whāia
By March 2020, almost all countries had closed their borders and schools (Figure 48). Over 80% had closed workplaces and 60% had required their population to stay at home (with exceptions for 'essential trips', for example, to supermarkets or to exercise).
Requirements to wear masks were infrequent in the early months of the pandemic. However, countries began to implement mask requirements in the second quarter of 2020. By late 2020, over 80% of countries required their citizens to wear masks in specified public spaces. This requirement remained in place for almost all countries well into 2022, when other restrictions were being removed. Unlike the closure of schools, workplaces and international borders, which were turned o and on in response to the numbers of COVID-19 cases, mask-wearing requirements generally remained in place for the whole of this period.
Figure 48: Proportion of countries using different types of restrictions, 2020–2022
Source: Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford (2023), Our World in Data
Notes:
School closing = schools require closing at some (or all) levels or categories
Workplace closing = for some/all sectors or for some/all workers
Stay at home requirements = required to stay at home, may include exceptions for 'essential trips'
International closures = ban on arrivals for some or all regions
Mask requirements = required to wear masks in public settings