Examining the Effectiveness of the COVID-19 Stringency Index in the
Caribbean during the Pre-Vaccination and Vaccination Periods
Abstract
Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of the COVID-19
Stringency Index (SI) during the pre-vaccination (PVACC) and vaccination
(VACC) periods in five English speaking countries: Bahamas (BHS),
Barbados (BRB), Guyana (GUY), Jamaica (JAM) and Trinidad and Tobago
(TT). Methods: Timeseries data on the 2019 Novel Coronavirus
were obtained, manipulated, and cleaned from March 2020 to March 2021
the (PVACC period) and April 2021 to June 2022 (VACC period). Analysis
of Variance (ANOVA) and Fishers HSD test, along with Welch’s ANOVA and
the Games-Howell test where necessary, were conducted on SI by country
for each period. A canonical correlation analysis (CCA) was used to
investigate the intercorrelation between dependent (COVID-19 indicators:
cases and deaths) and independent variables for both periods.
Results: During the PVACC period, BRB showed the lowest SI
(mean=57.48, Standard Deviation (SD)=18.04; deaths=42) while JAM had the
highest SI (mean=73.37, SD=6.66; deaths=596). In the VACC period, TT had
the highest SI (Mean=63.14, SD=21.37; deaths=159071) and BHS had the
lowest SI (mean=51.16, SD=8.07; deaths=629). The correlation between SI
with cases and deaths were as follows: PVACC: r = 0.024 (p
>0.01) and r=0.206 (p<0.01) and VACC: r=0.085
(p<0.01) and r=0.332 (p<0.01). The first pair of
canonical variates’ correlation coefficients were PVACC: R c =0.504 ( R
C 2 =25.4%) and VACC: R c =0.775 ( R C 2 = 60%). Canonical loadings
between the SI are PVACC: r s =0.313 ( r s 2 =9.8%) and VACC: r s
=-0.049 ( r s 2 =23.8%), and the cross loadings between SI and
canonical covariate of COVID-19 indicators are PVACC: r=0.157 (
r 2=0.025) and VACC: r=0.038 ( r
2=0.001). Conclusion: The SI appears to have
no significant impact during the pandemic. This suggests that there is
no association between the stringency index and the deaths due to
Covid-19.