How do mortality rate of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and economic growth of countries are affected by high restrictions and compulsory measures? This study confronts this question through a comparative analysis of countries that implement high and low level of restrictions against COVID-19 in order to understand whether high levels of restrictions are better at diminishing the adverse impacts of COVID-19 on public health and economies. The results of the study indicate that countries that implement high levels of restrictions are unable to reduce mortality per 1,000 people in comparison to those implementing little compulsory measures. Furthermore, that adopt high levels of restrictions exhibit a lower average growth of quarterly Gross Domestic Product than those with low levels of restrictions. The results obtained from this study can encourage countries to craft balanced and influential restriction policies to address COVID-19 and other pandemic crises of similar nature, which reduce mortality rates while safeguarding the socioeconomic systems.
Uçkaç et al. (Tue,) studied this question.