Using Stringency Index to compare Indian lockdown with others

What is the Stringency Index?

The Stringency Index is the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker. This tracker involves 100 Oxford community members. They continuously updated a database of 17 indicators of government response.

This indicator examined 09 containment policies. It includes school and workplace closings, public events, public transport, stay-at-home and other policies. The Stringency Index is a number from 0 to 100. (100 = strictest response). This index records the number and strictness of
government policies. It could not interpret the numbering the appropriateness or effectiveness of a country’s response.

How to use Stringency index

The stringency index systematically collects information on governments taken several different common policy responses. The scores the stringency each measure, and used these scores into a common Stringency Index. The data collected from public sources. The team of over one hundred Oxford University students and staff are collecting the data from every part of the world.

The Importance of the Stringency Index

This index provides information about the governments taken measures. It helps to understand the stage at which any country enforced its strongest policies. It provides an overlay of countries’ death curve and their stringency score.

This information helps in the decision-makers and citizens to understand the robustness of governmental responses in a consistent way. Also, it helps in aiding efforts to fight the pandemic.

How does India compare with others?

When compared to other countries, Indians went the strongest lockdowns at an early phase of case growth in Covid-19 Spread. 18 other countries had more than 500 cases when they called their strictest lockdown. At that time India had 320. The Indians had only four deaths on March 22, when its score reached 100. At that time, most countries had more deaths at that point.

In countries such as the UK, the US, and India, the Oxford shows the death curve were not flat after strictest measures enforced.

Spain in this case, they take stricter measures than their death count in all others. Sweden had the most liberal measures in this case. And Iran had the second most liberal measures.

According to the Stringency index measure, Honduras, Argentina, Jordan, Libya, Sri Lanka, Serbia, and Rwanda had 100 scores.

What else does Stringency index cover?

The researchers examined if countries meet four of the six World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommendations for relaxing physical distancing measures. The first one is the controlled transmission to a level the health care system can manage. The next one is the health care system can detect and isolate all cases. The third one is the managed transfer to and from high-risk transmission zones. The final one is community engagement.

India scored is 0.7. It is below in Australia, Thailand, Taiwan, and South Korea.  because it scored 0 for controlling its case. The highest scorers on this index is 0.9. It was Iceland, Hong Kong, Croatia, and Trinidad & Tobago.

Oxford found no countries meet the four measured recommendations. But there are 20 countries are close.