Flatten the curve. On a new covid-19 (hit) severity

Area of Science:

• Epidemiology
• Public Health
• Health Systems Research

Background:

• The COVID-19 pandemic response aimed to 'flatten the curve' of infections and mortality.
• Traditional metrics like total deaths or peak cases inadequately assess pandemic control and healthcare system resilience.
• A novel severity measure is needed to differentiate country performance beyond aggregate statistics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and apply a new severity measure for evaluating country-level COVID-19 pandemic performance.
• To assess how effectively different nations 'flattened the curve' using a more nuanced approach.
• To provide a tool for sound ex post performance assessment of pandemic policies.

Main Methods:

• Construction of a novel "hit" severity measure for pandemic impact.
• Application of the measure to a dataset of 32 countries.
• Analysis of pandemic severity using deaths as the primary indicator.

Main Results:

• Significant variation in pandemic severity was observed across the 32 studied countries.
• Norway demonstrated the lowest severity throughout the observation period.
• Hungary emerged as the country most severely affected by the pandemic in the sample.

Conclusions:

• The developed "hit" severity measure effectively differentiates country pandemic performance.
• Observed differences in severity warrant further investigation into pre-pandemic healthcare status and implemented measures.
• Future research should link severity variations to healthcare system characteristics and public health interventions to identify effective strategies.