Examining the Effectiveness of the COVID-19 Stringency Index in the Caribbean during the Pre-Vaccination and Vaccination Periods

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of the COVID-19 Stringency Index (SI) during the pre-vaccination (PVACC) and vaccination (VACC) periods in five English speaking countries: Bahamas (BHS), Barbados (BRB), Guyana (GUY), Jamaica (JAM) and Trinidad and Tobago (TT). Methods: : Timeseries data on the 2019 Novel Coronavirus were obtained, manipulated, and cleaned from March 2020 to March 2021 the (PVACC period) and April 2021 to June 2022 (VACC period). Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Fishers HSD test, along with Welch’s ANOVA and the Games-Howell test where necessary, were conducted on SI by country for each period. A canonical correlation analysis (CCA) was used to investigate the intercorrelation between dependent (COVID-19 indicators: cases and deaths) and independent variables for both periods. Results: : During the PVACC period, BRB showed the lowest SI (mean=57.48, Standard Deviation (SD)=18.04; deaths=42) while JAM had the highest SI (mean=73.37, SD=6.66; deaths=596). In the VACC period, TT had the highest SI (Mean=63.14, SD=21.37; deaths=159071) and BHS had the lowest SI (mean=51.16, SD=8.07; deaths=629). The correlation between SI with cases and deaths were as follows: PVACC: r = 0.024 (p >0.01) and r=0.206 (p<0.01) and VACC: r=0.085 (p<0.01) and r=0.332 (p<0.01). The first pair of canonical variates’ correlation coefficients were PVACC: R c =0.504 ( R C 2 =25.4%) and VACC: R c =0.775 ( R C 2 = 60%). Canonical loadings between the SI are PVACC: r s =0.313 ( r s 2 =9.8%) and VACC: r s =-0.049 ( r s 2 =23.8%), and the cross loadings between SI and canonical covariate of COVID-19 indicators are PVACC: r= 0.157 ( r 2 =0.025) and VACC: r= 0.038 ( r 2 =0.001). Conclusion: The SI appears to have no significant impact during the pandemic. This suggests that there is no association between the stringency index and the deaths due to Covid-19.