Effectiveness of Government Policies in Controlling COVID-19 in India

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to find the demographic factors associated with the spread of COVID-19 and to suggest a measure for identifying the effectiveness of government policies in controlling COVID-19. The study hypothesizes that the cumulative number of confirmed COVID-19 patients depends on the urban population, rural population, number of persons older than 50, population density, and poverty rate. A log-linear model is used to test the stated hypothesis, with the cumulative number of confirmed COVID-19 patients up to period $t$ as a dependent variable and demographic factors as an independent variable. The policy effectiveness indicator is calculated by taking the difference of the COVID rank of the $i$th state based on the predicted model and the actual COVID rank of the $i$th state$.$Our study finds that the urban population significantly impacts the spread of COVID-19. On the other hand, demographic factors such as rural population, density, and age structure do not impact the spread of COVID-19 significantly. Thus, people residing in urban areas face a significant threat of COVID-19 as compared to people in rural areas.

Keywords: COVID-19; corona; lockdown; pandemic; social distancing.