Greater trust in government, people could have reduced COVID-19 caseload, fatality rate: Study

The COVID-19 pandemic affected countries disparately. Factors such as per capita GDP, age profile, mean BMI, altitude and environmental seasonality determined the COVID-19 tally and fatality ratio.

However, these factors explained only part of the cross-country variation. People’s trust in the government played a statistically significant role, according to a new study.  

“Measures of trust in the government and interpersonal trust, as well as less government corruption, had larger, statistically significant associations with lower standardised infection rates,” the report published in the journal Lancet February, 2022 noted. 

The study Pandemic preparedness and COVID-19: an exploratory analysis of infection and fatality rates, and contextual factors associated with preparedness looked at infections across 177 countries between January 1, 2020 and September 30, 2021. 

Global caseload would have been 12.9 per cent lower if societies in every country trusted their government as much as the people in Denmark did, the report showed. 

Denmark was used as a benchmark because it was approximately the 75th percentile of measured countries in terms of confidence in government.

If interpersonal trust was as high in other countries as Denmark, global infections could have been reduced by 40.3 per cent, according to the findings.

A less corrupt government resulted in a more widespread and efficient COVID-19 vaccine coverage in middle- and high-income countries, where its availability was not a point of contention, the report argued. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has been termed by many experts as an “epidemiological mystery”, with the disease impacting high- and low-income countries differently. The former has a greater disease burden than the latter, despite a more robust healthcare system and higher vaccination rates. 

Mortality also varied, even within geographically close countries. For instance, Bulgaria, Namibia, and Bolivia recorded 4 deaths per 1,000 people but neighbouring countries such as Turkey, Angola, and Colombia have recorded half that figure.

This strengthens the need to look at contextual factors impacting mortality and infection to put together a long-term plan against the pandemic.

The Lancet study found how country-specific infection rates vary vastly, from 1 in 1,000 people testing positive for COVID-19 in China, to 988 in 1,000 people in Afghanistan. 

Romania, the Bahamas, and Suriname were impacted the most due to “excess risk (of infection) associated with seasonality”, the study found.

For infection-fatality rate too, the figures varied significantly between countries with 3.4 per 1,000 infections globally — from as low as 0.49 in Singapore to as high as 16.56 in Portugal. 

“Age structure alone explains the largest proportion of cross-country variation in IFR globally. Much research on COVID-19 has shown that with each year of life lived, the relative risk of mortality with infection increases dramatically,” the study said.

Japan, Portugal, and Spain recorded the largest increase in IFR due to age while Afghanistan, Mozambique, and Zambia saw the largest decrease in IFR due to a younger population.

Efforts to improve pandemic preparedness and response for the next pandemic might benefit from greater investment in risk communication and community engagement strategies to boost the confidence that individuals have in public health guidance, the researchers wrote in the report.  

Subscribe to Daily Newsletter :

SUPPORT US

We are a voice to you; you have been a support to us. Together we build journalism that is independent, credible and fearless. You can further help us by making a donation. This will mean a lot for our ability to bring you news, perspectives and analysis from the ground so that we can make change together.