How Early? Worldwide Evidence from Early Mask Mandates and Other Policy Interventions on COVID-19 Infection and Death

Abstract

The concept of agility underscores how fast actions, responsiveness to users’ experiences, and adaptive structures enable governments to address problems arising from rapidly changing environments. Applying the concept to government responses to COVID-19, we examine whether a government’s early mandate adoption enhances its eventual efficacy and how different policy instruments compare in both their short and long-run performance. Using worldwide data on the daily evolution of mandate adoption and virus progression, the analysis shows that the mask mandate, especially its early adoption, is consistently associated with lower infection rates in both short- and long-term. By contrast, the other five policy instruments—domestic lockdown, international travel ban, mass gathering ban, business, and school closure—show weaker efficacy. Agility is a critical dimension of policy instruments’ effectiveness, and not all interventions may have the same efficacy. To be agile, governments must weigh the relative efficacies of alternative policy instruments when designing mandates.