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Background: Global crises, regardless of the place where they started to spread or of the factors that triggered them, require a comprehensive approach, primarily based on good communication, cooperation and mutual support. No individual and no institution should remain indifferent to crises but, on the contrary, be fully aware that any involvement in curbing them matters. Although humanity can be affected by various types of crises, in this paper we refer to the one related to COVID-19 pandemic. There are certain reasons that come to justify our choice: first of all, being a shock with a strong impact on people, its analysis should be performed from several angles; this may bring to light an image with its disparate propagation and measures to counteract it both in developed countries, and especially in those with a shortage of resources. Secondly, in the context of the emergence of vaccines against COVID-19, it is helpful to have an overview of COVID-19 through the lens of the relationship between the vaccination process and the elements that characterize governance, with a differentiated dashboard by country categories worldwide: low, middle and high-income countries. Our study is far from capturing the complexity arising from such social problem, but rather aims to outline the defining role of governance when it comes to providing firm reactions to the COVID-19 crisis. Methods: Given that our sample consists of a large number of countries, namely 170, first, examined all together, and then, split into three groups (high, middle and low-income), it is challenging to address governance in association with COVID-19 vaccination, in order to see how much they interact and how each of the six aggregate governance indicators of the World Bank (Worldwide Governance Indicators) is reflected in this process. Even if they do not oscillate strongly over relatively short periods of time, reporting on health issues requires a sequential inventory, considering closer time intervals, so as to be able to act promptly. Thus, to better distinguish how the COVID-19 vaccination process evolved in low, middle and high-income countries, but also how it was imprinted by governance, we present the situation quarterly (March, June, September and December), in 2021, the year when the immunization campaigns were the most intense at the global level. Regarding the applied methods, we mention both OLS regressions with robust estimators and a panel model, used to investigate the determinants of COVID-19 vaccination, some of them describing the good governance, as well as other dimensions. Results: The findings point out that the influence of governance on COVID-19 vaccination differs depending on whether a country belongs to high, middle or low-income typology: the strongest determinism of governance on vaccination is encountered in high-income countries, and the weakest in low-income ones; in some cases, governance does not matter significantly. However, exploring the three groups of states included in the research, it is observed that the most relevant factors in this relationship are government effectiveness, regulatory quality and control of corruption. Conclusions: Besides the order of importance of governance indicators on COVID-19 vaccination, our study indicates that, overall, governance positively shapes the vaccination rate at the level of the chosen sample. In normative terms, these findings can be translated particularly by the fact that they can serve as information to raise awareness on the relevance of the existence of an institutional framework that allows the formulation of strategies according to the patterns of each country, especially since the actionable tools depend on the available resources. As a general conclusion, public policies should be designed in such a way as to strengthen trust in vaccination regulations and in governments, to reduce the multifaceted negative effects of this health crisis and to hope for its total end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Global crises, regardless of the place where they started to spread or of the factors that triggered them, require a comprehensive approach, primarily based on good communication, cooperation and mutual support. No individual and no institution should remain indifferent to crises but, on the contrary, be fully aware that any involvement in curbing them matters. Although humanity can be affected by various types of crises, in this paper we refer to the one related to COVID-19 pandemic. There are certain reasons that come to justify our choice: first of all, being a shock with a strong impact on people, its analysis should be performed from several angles; this may bring to light an image with its disparate propagation and measures to counteract it both in developed countries, and especially in those with a shortage of resources. Secondly, in the context of the emergence of vaccines against COVID-19, it is helpful to have an overview of COVID-19 through the lens of the relationship between the vaccination process and the elements that characterize governance, with a differentiated dashboard by country categories worldwide: low, middle and high-income countries. Our study is far from capturing the complexity arising from such social problem, but rather aims to outline the defining role of governance when it comes to providing firm reactions to the COVID-19 crisis. Methods: Given that our sample consists of a large number of countries, namely 170, first, examined all together, and then, split into three groups (high, middle and low-income), it is challenging to address governance in association with COVID-19 vaccination, in order to see how much they interact and how each of the six aggregate governance indicators of the World Bank (Worldwide Governance Indicators) is reflected in this process. Even if they do not oscillate strongly over relatively short periods of time, reporting on health issues requires a sequential inventory, considering closer time intervals, so as to be able to act promptly. Thus, to better distinguish how the COVID-19 vaccination process evolved in low, middle and high-income countries, but also how it was imprinted by governance, we present the situation quarterly (March, June, September and December), in 2021, the year when the immunization campaigns were the most intense at the global level. Regarding the applied methods, we mention both OLS regressions with robust estimators and a panel model, used to investigate the determinants of COVID-19 vaccination, some of them describing the good governance, as well as other dimensions. Results: The findings point out that the influence of governance on COVID-19 vaccination differs depending on whether a country belongs to high, middle or low-income typology: the strongest determinism of governance on vaccination is encountered in high-income countries, and the weakest in low-income ones; in some cases, governance does not matter significantly. However, exploring the three groups of states included in the research, it is observed that the most relevant factors in this relationship are government effectiveness, regulatory quality and control of corruption. Conclusions: Besides the order of importance of governance indicators on COVID-19 vaccination, our study indicates that, overall, governance positively shapes the vaccination rate at the level of the chosen sample. In normative terms, these findings can be translated particularly by the fact that they can serve as information to raise awareness on the relevance of the existence of an institutional framework that allows the formulation of strategies according to the patterns of each country, especially since the actionable tools depend on the available resources. As a general conclusion, public policies should be designed in such a way as to strengthen trust in vaccination regulations and in governments, to reduce the multifaceted negative effects of this health crisis and to hope for its total end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Given the nature of the spread of SARS-CoV-2, strong regional patterns in the fatal consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic related to local characteristics such as population and health care infrastructures were to be expected. In this paper we conduct a detailed examination of the spatial correlation of deaths in the first year of the pandemic in two neighbouring countries – Germany and Poland, which, among high income countries, seem particularly different in terms of the death toll associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis aims to yield evidence that spatial patterns of mortality can provide important clues as to the reasons behind significant differences in the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in these two countries. Methods: Based on official health and population statistics on the level of counties, we explore the spatial nature of mortality in 2020 in the two countries – which, as we show, reflects important contextual differences. We investigate three different measures of deaths: the officially recorded COVID-19 deaths, the total values of excessive deaths and the difference between the two. We link them to important pre-pandemic regional characteristics such as population, health care and economic conditions in multivariate spatial autoregressive models. From the point of view of pandemic related fatalities we stress the distinction between direct and indirect consequences of COVID-19, separating the latter further into two types, the spatial nature of which is likely to differ. Results: The COVID-19 pandemic led to much more excess deaths in Poland than in Germany. Detailed spatial analysis of deaths at the regional level shows a consistent pattern of deaths officially registered as related to COVID-19. For excess deaths, however, we find strong spatial correlation in Germany but little such evidence in Poland. Conclusions: In contrast to Germany, for Poland we do not observe the expected spatial pattern of total excess deaths and the excess deaths over and above the official COVID-19 deaths. This difference cannot be explained by pre-pandemic regional factors such as economic and population structures or by healthcare infrastructure. The findings point to the need for alternative explanations related to the Polish policy reaction to the pandemic and failures in the areas of healthcare and public health, which resulted in a massive loss of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]