What are effective strategy to constrain COVID-19 pandemic crisis? lessons learned from a comparative policy analysis between Italian regions to cope with next pandemic impact

Abstract

AbstractThe pandemic of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and its variants is rapidly spreading all over the world, generating a high number of infections, deaths and negative impact on socioeconomic system of countries. As vaccines and appropriate drugs for treatment of the COVID-19 can reduce the effectiveness in the presence of variants and/or new viral agents, one of the questions in social studies of medicine is effective public policy responses to reduce the impact of COVID-19 global pandemic and similar infectious diseases on health of people and on economies. This study analyzes public policy responses to the pandemic crisis across Italian regions that were the first areas to experience a rapid increase in confirmed cases and deaths of COVID-19. The analysis of regional strategies, from January to July 2020, reveals differences in public policy responses to delay and reduce the height of epidemic peak and to afford health-care systems more time to expand and respond to this new emergency. Veneto Region in North-East Italy has managed health policy responses with: a) a timely and widespread testing of individuals, b) units of epidemiological investigation for tracing all contacts of infected people in an effective contact tracing system. This public policy response has reduced total deaths and the final size of COVID-19 pandemic on health of people. Other regions have done public interventions without a clear strategy and goals to cope with diffusion of COVID-19 and as a consequence, they have had a higher negative impact on public health. Lesson learned can be important to design an effective public policy that can be generalized in different regional and national systems to prevent and/or reduce future epidemics or pandemics similar to the COVID-19.