TY - JOUR
T1 - Government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries
T2 - good practices and lessons for future preparedness
AU - Chen, Shu
AU - Guo, Lei
AU - Xie, Yewei
AU - Dong, Di
AU - Saber, Rana
AU - Alluhidan, Mohammed
AU - Alamri, Adwa
AU - Alfaisal, Abdulrahman
AU - Alazemi, Nahar
AU - Al-Farsi, Yahya M.
AU - Al Ohaly, Yazid A.
AU - Zhang, Yi
AU - Rakic, Severin
AU - Hamza, Mariam
AU - Herbst, Christopher H.
AU - Tang, Shenglan
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2024.
PY - 2024/3/15
Y1 - 2024/3/15
N2 - The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically threatened the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries which have a large proportion of foreign workers. The governments of GCC countries have proactively implemented a comprehensive set of policy measures, and up to our knowledge, a systematic analysis of qualitative and quantitative evidence on the government response is still lacking. We summarized the GCC countries’ government response and quantitatively measured that response using four indexes—the Government Response Index, the Stringency Index, the Vaccine Index, and the Initial Response Index, to analyse their response for future pandemic preparedness. Overall, the government response of all the GCC countries to the COVID-19 pandemic has been comprehensive, stringent, and timely. Notably, the GCC countries have implemented comprehensive vaccine policies. In addition, they have worked actively to protect foreign workers to improve their access to health services and secure their essential living conditions, regardless of their immigrant status. All the GCC countries dynamically adjusted their response to the evolving COVID-19 epidemiological burden and started to relax the stringency of the control policies after the Omicron wave, though the governments had different response magnitudes as measured by the four indexes. These findings have provided several important lessons for future pandemic response and preparedness for countries with similar economic, demographic, and health contexts in (1) prompt actions of containment and closure policies with dynamic adjusting, (2) strengthening health system policies, (3) comprehensive vaccination policies with universal access, (4) equitable and free access to testing, diagnosis, and treatment for all, and (5) strengthening the resilience of health systems.
AB - The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically threatened the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries which have a large proportion of foreign workers. The governments of GCC countries have proactively implemented a comprehensive set of policy measures, and up to our knowledge, a systematic analysis of qualitative and quantitative evidence on the government response is still lacking. We summarized the GCC countries’ government response and quantitatively measured that response using four indexes—the Government Response Index, the Stringency Index, the Vaccine Index, and the Initial Response Index, to analyse their response for future pandemic preparedness. Overall, the government response of all the GCC countries to the COVID-19 pandemic has been comprehensive, stringent, and timely. Notably, the GCC countries have implemented comprehensive vaccine policies. In addition, they have worked actively to protect foreign workers to improve their access to health services and secure their essential living conditions, regardless of their immigrant status. All the GCC countries dynamically adjusted their response to the evolving COVID-19 epidemiological burden and started to relax the stringency of the control policies after the Omicron wave, though the governments had different response magnitudes as measured by the four indexes. These findings have provided several important lessons for future pandemic response and preparedness for countries with similar economic, demographic, and health contexts in (1) prompt actions of containment and closure policies with dynamic adjusting, (2) strengthening health system policies, (3) comprehensive vaccination policies with universal access, (4) equitable and free access to testing, diagnosis, and treatment for all, and (5) strengthening the resilience of health systems.
KW - COVID-19
KW - GCC countries
KW - Government response
KW - Pandemic preparedness
KW - SARS-CoV-2
KW - Vaccine
KW - COVID-19/epidemiology
KW - Government
KW - Humans
KW - Vaccines
KW - Health Policy
KW - Pandemics/prevention & control
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85187902926&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85187902926&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/ac8ffe56-5596-3223-9ec5-a17c75bc0225/
U2 - 10.1186/s41256-024-00349-y
DO - 10.1186/s41256-024-00349-y
M3 - Article
C2 - 38486301
AN - SCOPUS:85187902926
SN - 2397-0642
VL - 9
JO - Global Health Research and Policy
JF - Global Health Research and Policy
IS - 1
M1 - 10
ER -