A new peer-reviewed Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker article has been published in Nature Human Behaviour. The paper explains the project dataset, and shows various intriguing patterns in COVID-19 policies during 2020.

'A global panel database of pandemic policies' describes patterns of global COVID-19 government responses with the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker data in order to demonstrate what kinds of questions the data can help researchers tackle. Two main applications are shown in the paper: 

  • highlighting patterns in the timing of policy adoption and subsequent policy easing and reimposition, and
  • illustrating how the data can be combined with behavioural and epidemiological indicators. 

For example, the data can help look in detail at the initial, global rise in policy responses and how this could have implications for coordinating responses to global infectious diseases in the future.

Authors also include DPhil alumnus Noam Angrist, Rafael Goldszmidt, Samuel Webster, ​​​​​​​and Saptarshi Majumdar.

Full citation: Hale, T., Angrist, N., Goldszmidt, R. et al. A global panel database of pandemic policies (Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker). Nat Hum Behav (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01079-8