The Luxury of Lockdown

Regression analysis based on data from Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker and the World Bank datasets for 169 countries suggests that containment policies have, in general, a significant role in reducing the pandemic’s fatality rate across all countries. However (i) there is at least a three weeks lag in realising the impact, (ii) the effectiveness increases with per capita income and, more specifically, (iii) workplace closure is ineffective in low-income countries. The analysis of data from Demographic and Health Survey (the DHS Programme) and IMF Policy Tracker indicates that developing countries are unlikely to have the basis required for effectively adopting stringent lockdown measures and instead would need to consider specifically targeted lockdown policies. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1057/s41287-021-00389-x.