Too Tight or Too Loose? The stringency of Mobility Restriction Policy Response by the Government of Sri Lanka against Covid-19

Abstract

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.