Stringency Index

Context: The Oxford University has created a Stringency Index which shows how strict a country’s measures were and at what stage of the Covid-19 spread, it enforced these. India enforced one of the strongest lockdowns at an early phase of case growth.

Relevance:
Prelims: Current events of national and international importance.
Mains: GS II-

• Issues relating to the development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.

• About
  • The Government Response Stringency Index is a composite measure based on various response indicators including school and workplace closures, stay-at-home policies, and travel bans, rescaled to a value from 0 to 100.
  • A higher index score indicates a higher level of stringency (100 = strictest response).
  • It is among the metrics used by the Oxford Coronavirus Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT).
  • The Tracker has a team of 100 Oxford community members who update a database of 17 indicators of government response.
• Death Curve and Stringency Score
  • The Index also provides an overlay of countries’ death curves and their stringency score.
  • Eighteen countries were compared for the highest death count at the strongest measures.
  • Italy, Spain, or France saw their deaths just begin to flatten as they reached their highest stringency.
  • China’s death curve saw a little or no change after it put stronger measures.
  • In the UK, the US, and India, the death curve has not flattened even after the imposition of the strictest measures.
• India’s Comparison
  • The Index has found that India has one of the strongest lockdown measures in the world, at a 100 score since 22nd March, when the nationwide lockdown was first imposed.
  • India called its strict lockdown at a much earlier point on its case and death curves when compared to other countries with a similar or higher caseload.
• Response on WHO’s Recommendations
  • The researchers also examined if countries meet four of the six World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommendations for relaxing physical distancing measures. 
    • The four of them are
      • Control transmission to a level the healthcare system can manage.
      • The healthcare system can detect and isolate all cases (not just serious ones).
      • Manage transfer to and from high-risk transmission zones.
      • Community engagement.
  • It was found that no countries meet the four measured recommendations, but 20 are close.
  • India scored 0.7 (below Australia, Thailand, Taiwan, and South Korea) because it scored 0 for controlling its cases.
  • The highest scorers on this index, at 0.9, were Iceland, Hong Kong, Croatia, and Trinidad & Tobago.
  • By 22nd March, India saw only 4 deaths while others saw more deaths.