12.1 Government responses to COVID-19

The worldwide advent of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 had tragic impacts on the lives of many people and had a substantial impact on economic life around the world, including the construction industry. Governments responded with legislation that implemented unprecedented policies in containment and border closure, economic assistance and health measures. The Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford collected data from 186 countries and regions on the policies governments implemented to respond to the pandemic and presented their findings in the Coronavirus Government Response Tracker (Response Tracker).1 The dataset in the Response Tracker contains 19 indicators and a miscellaneous notes field organised into four groups: