economy
DOING FINE HOLDING THE LINE IN BC British Columbia’s Covid-19 response has been laudable in comparison with other jurisdictions.
Early in 2020, as Covid-19 spread from one country to another, the approach adopted by governments to contain the virus and reduce demands on the health care system varied widely, from complete lockdowns in China to more passive approaches in Taiwan and Singapore. Even within Canada the approach by provincial governments varied in terms of both restrictiveness of the policies and their timing, and thanks to a measure of containment policies and public information campaigns developed by the Bank of Canada—the
stringency index—we can actually objectively compare the responses. Not surprising, Quebec and Ontario emerge as having the most stringent policies, as the total number and per capita cases in those provinces lurched ahead of the rest of the country. In BC a more measured approach had been taken relative to other provinces, with the stringency index remaining constant since November while it increased everywhere else in Canada. So far this approach has seen some success and helped BC’s labour market perform well under the circumstances.
LESSONS IN POLITICAL PARENTING FROM ACROSS THE COUNTRY
90
80
73 66 59 61
70
60
56
50
40
30
20
10
0
FEB
MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC
JAN
JAN
FEB
CANADA
PRAIRIES
QUEBEC
ONTARIO ATLANTIC
BRITISH COLUMBIA
DATA: COVID-19 STRINGENCY INDEX BY REGION; MEASURES CONTAINMENT RESTRICTIONS AND PUBLIC INFORMATION CAMPAIGNS SOURCE: BANK OF CANADA
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