On the management of COVID-19 pandemic in Italy

Fabio Santeramo, Marco Tappi and Emilia Lamonaca

Health Policy, 2021, vol. 125, issue 8, 995-1001

Abstract: The fast-moving coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) called for a rapid response to slowing down the viral spread and reduce the fatality associated to the pandemic. Policymakers have implemented a wide range of non-pharmaceutical interventions to mitigate the spread of the pandemic and reduce burdens on healthcare systems. An efficient response of healthcare systems is crucial to handle a health crisis. Understanding how non-pharmaceutical interventions have contributed to slowing down contagions and how healthcare systems have impacted on fatality associated with health crisis is of utmost importance to learn from the COVID-19 pandemic. We investigated these dynamics in Italy at the regional level. We found that the simultaneous introduction of a variety of measures to increase social distance is associated with an important decrease in the number of new infected patients detected daily. Contagion reduces by 1% with the introduction of lockdowns in an increasing number of regions. We also found that a robust healthcare system is crucial for containing fatality associated with COVID-19. Also, proper diagnosis strategies are determinant to mitigate the severity of the health outcomes. The preparedness is the only way to successfully adopt efficient measures in response of unexpected emerging pandemics.

Keywords: Health outcome; Lockdown; Social distancing; Policy response (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:125:y:2021:i:8:p:995-1001

DOI: 10.1016/j.healthpol.2021.05.014

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