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Research Article
N.W.A.N.Y. Wijesekara
Disaster Preparedness and Response Division, Ministry of Health
Corresponding Author
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The Covid-19 pandemic has demanded governments to respond through policy measures on health systems, restriction of community mobility, and economic recovery. Policy measures on mobility included international and local travel restrictions, closure of schools and workplaces, work from home, cancellation or restriction of public gatherings, close of public transport, and stay at home orders. Sri Lanka too has embraced several policy measures restricting community mobility to curtail the outbreak. This paper analyzes the trend of stringency of Covid-19 mobility restriction policy response by the Government of Sri Lanka concerning its epidemiological trend, and with the same patterns observed in selected countries of the world. The Government Response Stringency Index (GRSI), a composite indicator developed by the Oxford Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) group consisting of nine indicators based on publicly available data was used to track the stringency of policy measures related to mobility restrictions in Sri Lanka and the selected other countries. Besides, the daily number of Covid-19 cases in the same countries was analyzed. The results show that Sri Lanka was able to achieve 100% in the GRSI at the early stages of the outbreak, and most clusters it faced were curtailed under considerable high GRSI levels. GRSI values dropped to 26.85% just before the onset of the largest ever Minuwangoda Cluster, after which it was raised to 50%. Comparing GRSI values and epidemiological pattern of Sri Lanka with three purposefully selected blocks of countries showed that its stringency to be comparatively lower than most of the countries studied, as per the end of the study period. It could be seen that the current GRSI values about the policy measures adopted by the government of Sri Lanka are suboptimal, compared to the level of risk based on the case trend that the country is exposed to, as of 30th November 2020. These findings provide evidence towards the implementation of more stringent mobility control measures on an urgent basis, at least until the case number starts to fall.
Keywords
Covid-19, Government Response Stringency Index, Stringency Fatigues, Mobility, Policy Response
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This is a list of supplementary files associated with this preprint. Click to download.
- ICSBE2020Presentation177Wijesekaraetal.pdf
Presentation Made on this Paper at the 11th International Conference on Sustainable Built Environment (ICSBE) 2020, Kandy, Sri Lanka. 10th to 12th December 2020
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A new preprint design is coming!
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This is a preprint, a preliminary version of a manuscript that has not completed peer review at a journal. Research Square does not conduct peer review prior to posting preprints. The posting of a preprint on this server should not be interpreted as an endorsement of its validity or suitability for dissemination as established information or for guiding clinical practice.
Research Article
N.W.A.N.Y. Wijesekara
Disaster Preparedness and Response Division, Ministry of Health
Corresponding Author
Badges
Prescreen
This manuscript passed our Prescreen assessment
Complete author information
Appropriate declaration statements
Potential risks to human health
Prescreen
History
CURRENT STATUS: Posted
Version 1
Posted 14 Dec, 2020
No community comments so far
Metrics
Comments: 0
PDF Downloads: ...
HTML Views: ...
License:
This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License. Read Full License
Declarations:
Declarations
- The author has confirmed that a statement listing potential conflicts of interest or lack thereof is included in the text.
The Covid-19 pandemic has demanded governments to respond through policy measures on health systems, restriction of community mobility, and economic recovery. Policy measures on mobility included international and local travel restrictions, closure of schools and workplaces, work from home, cancellation or restriction of public gatherings, close of public transport, and stay at home orders. Sri Lanka too has embraced several policy measures restricting community mobility to curtail the outbreak. This paper analyzes the trend of stringency of Covid-19 mobility restriction policy response by the Government of Sri Lanka concerning its epidemiological trend, and with the same patterns observed in selected countries of the world. The Government Response Stringency Index (GRSI), a composite indicator developed by the Oxford Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) group consisting of nine indicators based on publicly available data was used to track the stringency of policy measures related to mobility restrictions in Sri Lanka and the selected other countries. Besides, the daily number of Covid-19 cases in the same countries was analyzed. The results show that Sri Lanka was able to achieve 100% in the GRSI at the early stages of the outbreak, and most clusters it faced were curtailed under considerable high GRSI levels. GRSI values dropped to 26.85% just before the onset of the largest ever Minuwangoda Cluster, after which it was raised to 50%. Comparing GRSI values and epidemiological pattern of Sri Lanka with three purposefully selected blocks of countries showed that its stringency to be comparatively lower than most of the countries studied, as per the end of the study period. It could be seen that the current GRSI values about the policy measures adopted by the government of Sri Lanka are suboptimal, compared to the level of risk based on the case trend that the country is exposed to, as of 30th November 2020. These findings provide evidence towards the implementation of more stringent mobility control measures on an urgent basis, at least until the case number starts to fall.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5
This is a list of supplementary files associated with this preprint. Click to download.
- ICSBE2020Presentation177Wijesekaraetal.pdf
Presentation Made on this Paper at the 11th International Conference on Sustainable Built Environment (ICSBE) 2020, Kandy, Sri Lanka. 10th to 12th December 2020
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