Stringent Government Policies Are Associated With a Lower COVID-19 Spread Rate

The outbreak of COVID-19 has prompted a wide range of policy responses from governments around the world. In this study, we investigate the effect of governmental policies on the spread of the COVID-19 in a cross-country setting using the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Stringency Index. We find that stringent government policies overall, and the following policies in particular, are associated with a lower spread rate of COVID-19 cases: workplace closing, restrictions on gatherings, close of public transport, stay-at-home order, restrictions on internal movement, and international travel controls; while school closing and public events cancellation are not associated with a lower COVID-19 spread. After including all policies into one single regression and examining their associations simultaneously with the virus spread, we find that the two policies stand out and remain to have a negative association with the COVID-19 spread: close of public transport and restrictions on international travel. Finally, we show that when countries are more oriented toward a tight culture, their governmental strict policies effect on the spread of COVID-19 becomes 1.5 – 3 times stronger than countries more toward a loose culture. Our findings suggest that the governments need to carefully implement policies to cope with the COVID-19 spread in their own social and cultural context.