Combatting COVID: The Role of Government

Adam Zyglis | The Buffalo News, NY

By Akash Uppal

Within a few short weeks, COVID-19 has brought about a profound shift in daily interaction, with governments resorting to drastic measures to mitigate the spread of the disease. Central banks worldwide are exploring complex monetary policy tools ranging from quantitative easing to slashing interest rates. Both democratic and dictatorial regimes have imposed upon civil liberties, with citizens required to accept the prioritization of security over freedom. In response to the crisis, not only are governments managing perception to bolster electoral support, but they are forced to find the delicate balance between the health of the populace and the strength of the economy. Given the convoluted nature of the politics of pandemics, it is important to understand the elements that enable successful government responses in the early, middle, and late stages of the crisis. By understanding the elements that help in times of pandemic, governments can learn from COVID-19 to better prepare for inevitable future public health crises.

With ample variance between countries, a high degree of heterogeneity in the ways governments have approached COVID-19 is expected. Some leaders, such as Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, have denied the existence of any threat, fighting against the imposition of quarantines at a sub-national level. Other leaders offer respite in the form of religion, with Tanzania’s John Magufuli arguing that the “satanic” virus could not possibly survive in open churches. Contrarily, South Korea was able to slow the spread of COVID-19 through the implementation of social distancing and an innovative drive-through procedure for mass testing, inspired by food-chains such as McDonald’s and Starbucks. Despite inter-country variance, the countries succeeding in abating COVID-19 have made investments enabling three key elements of state response.

As the virus begins to unfold, the first element of successful state response is speed. Part of the reason why COVID-19 is particularly threatening is that it is highly infectious, being able to be spread through droplets produced when an infected individual coughs or sneezes. Thus, reduced interaction ensured by quarantines seems to be one of the most effective ways to curb the spread of the virus, evidenced by the reduced infection rate of rapidly-quarantined countries like Denmark, Slovakia, and South Africa. When examining the case in Greece, with the second-oldest population in the E.U., limited financial firepower, and a fragile economy crippled by austerity, COVID-19 should have been utterly devastating. Nearby outbreaks were poorly managed; Italy bungled its response, with 215,000 confirmed cases and 30,000 fatalities. The Spanish situation was not much different, outpacing Italy in confirmed cases, but trailing slightly behind in deaths. The key to the Greek response was the speed of government response. In terms of school closures, Italy took 33 days after its first confirmed case, and Spain 43 days, while all Greek schools were closed within 13 days. After the first fatality in each country, Greece once again outpaced its neighbours, closing down all non-essential stores within 4 days compared to Italy’s 18 days and Spain’s 30 days. Although economic misfortune may remain unavoidable for Greece, their rapid quarantines allowed them to avoid an assuredly inferior counterfactual.

In the weeks preceding the announcement of first confirmed cases, the second element of successful state response takes on increasing importance: trust in government. This is for two central reasons. Firstly, most governments lack the staffing requirements to actively enforce compliance with government mandates — greater trust in government inspires voluntary compliance, reducing the burden on government enforcement in pandemic response. Traditionally, totalitarian states were associated with neighbourhood spies, gulags, and highly centralized ideological systems where neighbors shared a mutual distrust of one another. The remnants of these systems inhibit the pandemic response. For example, when announcing a potential quarantine, authoritarian Hong Kong faced striking nurses and violent opposition — likely no coincidence provided that nearly 60% of the population distrusts the government. Secondly, distrust for governments can have devastating effects on the propagation of health information and protection measures. Even in the United States, once hailed as a paragon of democracy, trust in government has reached near-historic lows, accompanying the rise of populist leader Donald Trump. The resulting dissidence hampers public health communication efforts, with reports suggesting that the observance of basic handwashing guidelines diverged along partisan lines as the US president downplayed the virus and contradicted his medical experts. Comparatively, Taiwan has nurtured public trust through daily briefings by medical experts and utilizing a public health response mechanism developed in response to the devastating 2003 SARS outbreak. Not only did this rapid and transparent response enable Taiwan to avoid strict lockdowns, but it allowed Taiwan to donate 10 million masks to the US, Spain, Italy, and many others. Especially in the critical onsetting weeks of a pandemic, trust in government is crucial to the flow of accurate information and observance of government mandates.

As the weeks become months, and governments begin to make considerations beyond purely the health of the populace, the third element of successful state response becomes paramount — namely, the ability for governments to manage the restoration of economic growth. While all countries want to preserve the health of their citizens, they must manage the duality of concerns emerging from the tradeoff between preserving the health of the populace and the stability of the economy. In decision-making surrounding this tradeoff, the politicians comprising the government remain cognizant of electoral outcomes.

Economists have long-understood this connection between economic conditions and electoral outcomes. Economist Ray Fair proposes a model in which voters consider current economic conditions and their expected utility under each candidate, then make the rational decision to vote for whichever candidate maximizes their utility. In times of pandemic, economic conditions tend to worsen, reducing the expected utility under incumbents and reducing the opportunity cost of supporting alternative candidates. While it may not seem rational for voters to punish politicians for matters outside of their control, this phenomenon has an empirical foundation. In fact, voters have been demonstrated to punish incumbent mayors for natural disasters, holding them accountable for the associated worsened economic conditions, regardless of to what degree the politician was actually responsible for the crisis. This helps to explain why, despite concerns of worker safety or a secondary wave of COVID-19, governments are quick to announce reopening plans for the economy in countries from Spain to Singapore to South Africa. In principle, this rapid reopening would enable voters to continue earning their salaries and yield rewards for politicians who successfully balanced the risk with the rewards associated with reopening their economies. In practice, it is only through the coordination of fiscal and monetary policy that countries can manage this tradeoff and transition their economies back into a state of normalcy. In Canada, fiscal authorities took the lead in offering financial support to those directly affected by COVID-19, while regulatory authorities eased up on capital buffers; The Bank of Canada reduced policy rates and began quantitative easing. Adopting a holistic approach in coordinating the return life-as-usual is central to managing the restoration of economic growth.

In the upcoming months, many uncertainties regarding the progression of COVID-19 persist. Perhaps COVID-19 will serve to expose the incompetence of poor leadership, during a time when the tolerance for showmanship and incorrect information is lower; or perhaps the virus will present an opportunity for populist leaders to amplify their nationalistic message and present themselves as the only solution for the issues at hand. In the long-term, the pandemic may undermine autocratic leaders, as citizens come to appreciate the value of expertise and efficient institutions. However, the short-term erosion of civil liberties accompanying the uptake of emergency powers, ranging from restrictions on freedom of assembly to the postponing of elections, threatens to promote a wave of democratic backsliding. In times of national emergency, institutions and leadership are tested — those who will succeed are those who will rise to the challenge.