The Power of Governments in Fight Against COVID-19: High-Performing Health Systems or Government Response Policies?

Abstract Due to the pandemic situation caused by COVID-19 disease, there have been tremendous efforts worldwide to keep the spread of the virus under control and protect the functioning of health systems. Although governments take many actions in fighting this pandemic, it is well known that health systems play an undeniable role in this fight. This study aimed to investigate the role of health systems and government responses in fighting COVID-19. By purposively sampling Finland, Denmark, the UK, and Italy and analyzing their health systems’ performances, governments’ stringency indexes, and COVID-19 spread variables, this study showed that high-performing health systems were the main power of states in managing pandemic environments. This study also measured relations between short and medium-term measures and COVID-19 case and death numbers in all study countries. It showed that medium-term measures had significant effects on death numbers.