Efficacy of Government Responses to COVID-19 in Mediterranean Countries

OBJECTIVE: This article aims to provide empirical evidence on the effectiveness of the governments’ policy measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Mediterranean countries. METHODS: We considered five categories of response: lockdowns, social distancing, movement restrictions, public health measures, and governance and socio-economic measures. Our main research question is, How long do these measures take to become effective? Our analysis, by longitudinal regressions and panel count data analyses, focuses on one region—the Mediterranean countries—to avoid differences, such as cultural factors, that may influence the evolution of the viral pandemic. We start by investigating heteroscedasticity, and both serial and contemporaneous correlation of the disturbance term across cross-sectional countries. RESULTS: Our different estimation methods paint very similar trajectories of the efficacy of governments’ response measures. The benefits of these measures increase exponentially with time. We find that the net effects can be divided into three phases. In the first week, the benefits are not guaranteed unless the total number of contamination cases is less than some threshold values, ie if the spread of the virus is not already advanced. Then, indirect effects are revealed. After three weeks, we observe a reduction in the number of the new confirmed viral cases and, thus, the direct net benefits are observed. CONCLUSION: The earlier governments act, in relation to the evolution of the epidemic, the lower the total cumulative incidence due to the epidemic wave.