Assessing the Impact of Policy Measures in Reducing the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of South Asia

The COVID-19 pandemic is considered to be the world’s most urgent health disaster and greatest challenge humanity has faced since World War II. One of significant concerns effectiveness extraordinary efforts undertaken around world prevent spread coronavirus. This study applied Westerlund cointegration test Pooled Mean Group–Autoregressive Distributed Lag (PMG-ARDL) model investigate government policy measures in reducing using weekly data for period 1 January 2020 31 May 2021. results validate presence a relationship between pandemic. In addition, PMG-ARDL show that economic support, stringency, containment play role Therefore, this concluded pharmaceutical non-pharmaceutical have substantial impact on mitigating South Asia. Policy implications such as financial support poor families, must adopted during curb/reduce COVID-19. Furthermore, it also recommended provide vaccines free charge developing countries stimulus package research expand capacity rapid vaccine region.