The Relationship Between COVID-19 Preparedness Parameters and its Impact in Developing Effective Response Mechanisms

Effectively responding to COVID-19 became the topmost priority of almost all the countries in the world in 2020. The current situation of the COVID-19 has already questioned the Global Health Security and preparedness, as there is a significant deviation between the expected level of pandemic preparedness of countries and their actual performance during COVID-19. In this regard, the identification of reasons behind this deviation is paramount in strengthening pandemic preparedness planning. In this study, a correlation analysis was performed based on data collected from 145 countries from 31st December to 21st May 2020 using SPSS Statistics software, to explore the relationship between the expected level of performance during a pandemic and the level of response in controlling the COVID-19 outbreak. The parameters of expected preparedness levels of countries were extracted from the Global Health Security Index (GHSI), introduced by Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (JHU). This tool evaluates the health system, compliance with international norms, and overall risk environment of a country in addition to the fundamental assessment of prevention, detection, and reporting, and rapid response. The results revealed that most prepared countries according to the GHSI, have been affected by comparatively higher damages and the preparedness in ‘Overall Risk Environment’ has more impact on actual performance in responding to COVID-19. The outcome of the study will help to guide the stakeholders in pandemic preparedness planning to concern more about the overall risk environment and the vulnerability of a country which includes infrastructure adequacy, political risks, and socio resilience and, acquire the effective use of the built environment.