PurposeThe goal of this study is to analyze the relationship between public governance and COVID-19 vaccinations during early 2021 to assess the preparedness of countries to timely policy responses to cope with pandemic crises.Design/methodology/approachThis global study elaborates descriptive statistics, correlations, regression analyses and Independent Samples T-Test on 112 countries, comparing those with high/low level of governance, to determine whether statistical evidence supports the hypothesis that good governance can improve the timely administration of vaccines.FindingsBivariate correlation reveals that doses of vaccines administered × 100 inhabitants have a high positive association with the General Index of Governance (r = 0.58, p-value <0.01). The result is confirmed by partial correlation (controlling density of population per km2): r = 0.584, p-value <0.001. The coefficient of regression in the models also indicates that an increase in the General Index of Governance improves the expected administration of doses of COVID-19 vaccines (p-value <0.001).Research limitations/implicationsAlthough this study has provided interesting results that are, of course, tentative, it has several limitations. First, a limitation is the lack of data in several countries. Second, not all the possible confounding factors that affect the vaccination against COVID-19 are investigated, such as country-specific health investments and expenditures, and these aspects should be examined in the future development of this research. A third limit is related to the measurement of governance through the World Governance Indicators, which are based only on perceptions and can be biased by different socio-economic factors.Practical implicationsThe identification of factors determining the timely vaccinations may help to design best practices of health policy for improving the resilience of countries to face pandemic crises.Social implicationsThe improvement of preparedness of countries through good governance can foster a rapid rollout of vaccinations to cope with pandemic threats and the negative effects of their socio-economic impact.Originality/valueThis study presents a global analysis of the role of public governance for timely vaccinations to face pandemic crises in society.
One of the fundamental questions in the presence of Coronavirus Diseases 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic crisis and in general of new pandemic diseases is to design effective policy responses to reduce the impact in the initial phase of diffusion, when appropriate therapies and drugs lack. This study analyses a main case study given by Italy, one of the first European countries to be damaged of the impact of COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, this study focuses on health policy responses to the pandemic crisis across selected Italian regions that were the first areas to experience a rapid increase in confirmed cases and deaths of COVID-19. The analysis of early regional health policies, from January to July 2020 (during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic), reveals that some regions have managed pandemic crisis with appropriate health policy responses based on: a) a timely and widespread testing of individuals, b) effective units of epidemiological investigation in a pervasive contact-tracing system to detect and isolate all infected people. This health policy response has reduced total deaths and negative effects of COVID-19 on health of people during the first pandemic wave, when are not available pharmaceutical interventions, such as vaccines and other antiviral drugs. This evidence in the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic provides important lessons to design an effective public health policy to constraint future pandemic waves driven by new variants and new viral agents, when appropriate drugs are not ready.
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