Standardising policy and technology responses in the immediate aftermath of a pandemic: a comparative and conceptual framework

Background: The initial policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic has differed widely across countries. Such variability in government interventions has made it difficult for policymakers and health research systems to compare what has happened and the effectiveness of interventions across nations. Timely information and analysis are crucial to addressing the lag between the pandemic and government responses to implement targeted interventions to alleviate the impact of the pandemic. Methods: To examine the effect government interventions and technological responses have on epidemiological and economic outcomes, this policy paper proposes a conceptual framework that provides a qualitative taxonomy of government policy directives implemented in the immediate aftermath of a pandemic announcement and before vaccines are implementable. This framework assigns a gradient indicating the intensity and extent of the policy measures and applies the gradient to four countries that share similar institutional features but different COVID-19 experiences: Italy, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Results: Using the categorisation framework allows qualitative information to be presented, and more specifically the gradient can show the dynamic impact of policy interventions on specific outcomes. We have observed that the policy categorisation described here can be used by decision-makers to examine the impacts of major viral outbreaks such as SARS-CoV-2 on health and economic outcomes over time. The framework allows for a visualisation of the frequency and comparison of dominant policies and provides a conceptual tool to assess how dominant interventions (and innovations) affect different sets of health and non-health related outcomes during the response phase to the pandemic. Conclusions: Policymakers and health researchers should converge toward an optimal set of policy interventions to minimize the costs of the pandemic (i.e., health and economic), and facilitate coordination across governance levels before effective vaccines are produced. The proposed framework provides a useful tool to direct health research system resources and build a policy benchmark for future viral outbreaks where vaccines are not readily available.