Is the Network of World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders Associated with COVID-19 Non-Pharmaceutical Intervention Severity?

This article scrutinizes the idea that the World Economic Forum (WEF) had a significant influence on the scale and scope of the non-pharmaceutical pandemic interventions (NPIs) implemented in response to the COVID-19 crisis. We tested for associations between the country-level distribution of an alumni network of high-level decision makers who have undergone the WEF’s Young Global Leaders (YGL) training and the intensity and duration of the implemented NPIs as per Government Response Severity Index (GRSI). For the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the results display significant positive correlations between the median (ρ = .36, p = 2.5 * 10-7) and maximum (ρ = .33, p = 2 * 10-6) severity of NPIs and the absolute number of YGLs per country. As there are no significant correlations during the first wave of the pandemic, however, we conclude that the WEF might not have been the origin of, but rather an echo-chamber or amplifier for certain opinions and strategies that were formed and implemented during or before the first months of the COVID-19 crisis.