Stringency Index

Table of Contents

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.

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.
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.
It was slightly relaxed on 20th April after the government eased norms for certain workplaces in regions outside the red zones (zones with increasing rate of active cases).
Other countries with a 100 score are Honduras, Argentina, Jordan, Libya, Sri Lanka, Serbia and Rwanda.
Death Curve and Stringency Score:
The Index also provides an overlay of countries’ death curve 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 imposition of the strictest measures.
India’s Comparison:
India called its strict lockdown at a much earlier point on its case and death curves when compared to other countries with similar or higher case load.
While imposing lockdown, India had around 320 cases while others had more than 500 cases.
By 22nd March, India saw only 4 deaths while others saw more deaths.
Spain called for its strictest measures later in its case and death count than all others.
Sweden has had the most liberal measures in this set and Iran the second most liberal.

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.
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.