The Relationship between Democracy embracement and COVID-19 reported casualties worldwide

Abstract

BackgroundThe COVID-19 toll of cases and deaths followed an uneven pattern across the world. The literature has partly explained the observed discrepancy between the different countries by country-specific and systemic patterns worldwide. In this study, we propose an additional explanation that the magnitude of COVID-19 toll reported to the WHO could be influenced by the level of free speech and Democracy in the reporting countries.MethodsWe constructed a longitudinal dataset including the daily COVID-19 count of cases and deaths worldwide and each country’s respective score on the Freedom in the World index. We applied two Generalized Estimating Equation models to investigate if a country’s reported toll count of COVID-19 cases and deaths is related to that country’s freedom level. We controlled for factors identified in the current literature to affect the pandemic’s spread.ResultsA country’s score on the Freedom In the World Index was associated with its reported COVID-19 cases count (57028.43, 95% CI 985.3619 - 113071.5, P= 0.0461) and deaths count (3473.273, 95% CI1217.12-5729.42, P=.002). Also, despite having almost equal shares of the world’s population, countries at the bottom category of the Freedom index reported 21% and 11% of the COVID-19 toll cases and death counts reported by countries of highest scores on the index, respectively.ConclusionsThe known magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic’s morbidity and mortality appears to be as transparent as the reporting countries uphold free speech and Democracy. This pattern could potentially misguide international aid and global vaccine distribution plans.

The differential impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on Medicaid expansion and non-expansion states

“…The findings present an opportunity for the U.S. to improve its health care system, building on the ongoing efforts to ensure accuracy of its COVID-19 counting; an advantage not available in many other countries. 20 The results show that COVID-19 epidemic spread at a significantly slower rate in the expansion states than the nonexpansion states. It took almost two additional days for COVID-19 case numbers to double in Medicaid expansion states than in the nonexpansion states.…”

Democratic Regimes and Epidemic Deaths

“…Only Mazzucchelli et al (2020) have systematically examined the impact of specific democratic institutions and practices on COVID-19 deaths, albeit only in Europe. Two other studies investigate the impact of one or two democratic components (Bosancianu et al 2020, Hussein et al 2021. In sum, the existing literature does not provide guidance about regime types' and their components' impact on all epidemics.…”

“…Fewer studies have examined the impact of democracy on COVID-19 deaths (e.g. Bosancianu et al 2020, Cassan and Steenvort 2021, Cepaluni et al 2020, Hussein et al 2021, Mazzucchelli et al 2020, Sorci et al 2020. Earlier studies found a positive association between democracy and COVID-19 deaths; later studies found no association.…”

Pseudoscience in the Times of Crisis: How and Why Chlorine Dioxide Consumption Became Popular in Latin America During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Recently, the degree of freedom of speech and democracy, as measured by the Freedom in the World Index (FWI), has been used to better understand the COVID-19 response of individual governments, particularly in reporting case numbers and death tolls (Hussein et al, 2020). Unlike in the GI and GII, Latin American countries have very different degrees of FWI, with some countries considered "Free" such as Chile, while others considered "Not Free" like Cuba and Venezuela (Santiago et al, 2020).…”