The institutional and cultural context of cross-national variation in early COVID-19 outbreaks

Headnote

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic posed an unprecedented and cascading threat to the health and economic prosperity of the world's population; this research analyzed whether the institutional and cultural context influences the early phases of the COVID-19 outbreak across 96 countries. At the ecological level, regression coefficients are examined to figure out contextual variables influencing the pandemic's growth rate. While a strong institutional context is negatively associated with the outbreak (B = -0.55 ... - 0.64, p < 0.001), the pandemic's growth rate is steeper in countries with a quality education system (B = 0.33, p < 0.001). Countries with an older population are more affected (B = 0.46, p < 0.001). Societies with individualistic (rather than collectivistic) values experience a flatter rate of pathogen proliferation (B = -0.31, p < 0.001), similarly for higher levels of power distance (B = -0.32, p < 0.001). Hedonistic values, that is seeking indulgence and not enduring restraints, are positively related to the outbreak (B = 0.23, p = 0.001). The results emphasize the need for public policy makers to pay close attention to the institutional and cultural context in their respective countries when instigating measures aimed at constricting the pandemic's growth.

Keywords: COVID-19, pandemic, contextual factors, crossnational variation

Introduction

As of March 21, 2020, more than 271,364 cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) were confirmed worldwide. Italy, then the second most impacted country with 47,021 confirmed cases, recorded its first three cases only on January 31, 2020 (1). Efforts to completely contain the new virus largely failed. As a consequence of global mobility and trade, people carrying the virus arrived in countries without ongoing transmission. Governments were scrambling to put in unprecedented measures to flatten the curve, because the faster the infection curve rises, the quicker the national health care systems get overloaded beyond their capacity of treating people effectively. While ultimately the same number of people were likely to get infected, reducing the initial number of cases would have made the outbreak easier to control overall (2).

In this study, I examine cross-national variation in the early COVID-19 outbreaks in 96 countries to analyze the impact of global connectivity, national institutions, socio-demographic characteristics, and cultural values on the initial arc of the curve. While getting to...