Determinations of strategy responding to COVID-19

Abstract This study explores what determines the selection of strategies by governments responding to COVID-19. To answer the question, we propose concepts of individual utility and societal utility and build a simple model. By applying the model, we predict that countries with an individualist culture would adopt more passive strategies while countries with a collectivist culture would adopt more active strategies. The comparison between strategies adopted in China and in the United Kingdom supports the prediction. Furthermore, as the spread of COVID-19 virus continues, governments’ response may change and individualist countries may switch to more active strategies. So we extend our model to incorporate the dynamics of strategy selection, and explain the switch between passive and active strategies. We then predict in particular that facing the unexpected infections and deaths, the countries with an individualist culture would temporally adopt a relatively more active strategy responding to COVID-19. The evidence from Spain shows the dynamic feature of strategy selection as predicted by our model.