Beyond SARS-CoV-2: Understanding the Implications of National Pandemic Policies on Local Health Care Systems

Abstract

Overall aim of the paper: use what we have learnt from SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and make policy recommendations that would aid policy decisions during any future pandemics. We have evidence of the various policy interventions and the manifested local healthcare implications (admissions/occupancy/deaths etc.) to suggest that local variation is significant enough to warrant local interventions in future pandemics. We have modelled the implications of national pandemic policy on local health economies and suggest that nationally coordinated approaches do not attain their policy objective of reducing infections. Therefore, we suggest local policy approaches to enable relevant positive progress on containment by protecting the vulnerable and increasing shielding measures which data modelling suggests has the most positive impact on population health and reducing SARS-CoV-2 mortality rates whilst, at the same time, reducing the economic impact of national, often less relevant, pandemic policies.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, Epidemiology, Health Economics, Population Health, System Dynamic Modelling, Behavioral Economic Modelling

JEL Classification: E27, P11, I12, I15, I18