Effect of government intervention in relation to COVID-19 cases and deaths in Malawi

The COVID-19 pandemic affected the world in various ways. In response to this, countries set up various interventions such as lockdowns, physical distancing, and mandatory face covering, among others. Governments also put in place measures to ensure compliance. However, the extent to which the various responses impacted the deaths and confirmed cases remains debatable. This paper explores this question by looking at how government stringency measures impacted deaths and cases in Malawi. We employ an instrumental variable (IV) approach to assess the impact of government action on confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths. We measure government policy by the stringency index. By leveraging the IV approach, we circumvent potential endogeneity concerns between our main policy variable and the outcome variables. Our data comes from the University of Oxford COVID-19 project and spans a daily frequency from 20 February 2020 to 25 April 2022, covering multiple waves of the pandemic. Overall, the findings show that despite Malawi never having implemented a full lockdown, the government policies may have helped to reduce both cases and deaths related to COVID-19. Specifically, the IV shows that a unit increase in the government stringency index results in a drop of 179 cases and 6 deaths. All the results are statistically significant at 1% level and remain robust to the use of the ordinary least-squares method. This study demonstrates the efficacy of non-pharmaceutical tools implemented by the government to fight COVID-19. Thus, policymakers need to place more emphasis on the need for the public to adhere to these stringency measures in the event of new waves of the pandemic or similar outbreaks.