Untying the Precise Impact of COVID-19 Policy on Social Distancing Behavior

• Main Authors: Fakhar Shahzad, Jianguo Du, Imran Khan, Zeeshan Ahmad, Muhammad Shahbaz
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-01-01
• Series: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
• Subjects: COVID-19; social distancing; healthcare; policies
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/3/896
• ISSN: 1661-7827; 1660-4601

Social distancing has manifold effects and is used as a non-pharmacological measure to respond to pandemic situations such as the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), especially in the absence of vaccines and other useful antiviral drugs. Governments around the globe have adopted and implemented a series of social distancing strategies. The efficacy of various policies and their comparative influence on mechanisms led by public actions and adoptions have not been examined. The differences in types and effective dates of various social distancing policies in various provinces/territories of Pakistan constitute a pure ground to examine the causal effects of each COVID-19 policy. Using the location trends and population movement data released by Google, a quasi-experimental method was used to measure the impact of the government’s various social distancing policies on the people’s existence at home and their outside social mobility. Based on the magnitude and importance of policy influences, this research ranked six social distancing policies whose influence exceeded the effect of voluntary behavior. Our research outcomes describe that the trend of staying at home was firmly pushed by state-wide home order rather than necessary business closings and policies that were associated with public gathering restrictions. Strong government policies have a strong causal effect on reducing social interactions.