COVID-19 Commons^™

Overcoming Vaccine Hesitancy: Evidence From Italy During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Alessandro Del Ponte, Audrey De Dominicis, Paolo Canofari

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

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Objectives

Here we investigate whether releasing COVID-19 vaccines at open-day events boosted Italy's vaccination campaign in 2021. This strategy exploits insights from psychology.

Study design

We built an original dataset covering 200 days of vaccination data in Italy, including “open day” events. Open-day events (in short: open days) are instances where COVID-19 vaccines were released only for a specific day at a specified location (usually, a large pavilion or a public building). Importantly, releasing vaccines through open days instead of the usual appointment channel leaves the supply of vaccines unaltered. Our dependent variables are the number of total and first …

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State Capacity And Covid-19 Responses: Comparing The Us States, Kiran Auerbach, Joshua Y. Lerner, Hannah M. Ridge

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

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This article addresses the interstate differences in outcomes from the coronavirus disease COVID-19 pandemic by focusing on state capacity. State capacity refers to states’ ability to create and implement policy. We posit that states want to limit death and destruction within their borders. COVID-19 created an instance in which states had a shared, preferred outcome but had very different levels of success. Using a novel measure of state capacity that allows for subnational comparisons – and is independent of ideological political will – we show that states with greater capacity experienced fewer excess deaths during 2020 and more successfully distributed …

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Polarization, The Pandemic, And Public Trust In Health System Actors, Alessandro Del Ponte, Alan S. Gerber, Eric M. Patashnik

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

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Context: Public opinion on the performance of health system actors is polarized today, but it remains unclear which actors enjoy the most or the least trust among Democrats and Republicans, whether the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced how people view their own physicians, and whether doctors have retained the ability to influence public beliefs about policy issues.

Methods: The authors conducted two national surveys in 2022 and 2023 to examine these questions.

Findings: Democrats rated the performance of medical research scientists and public health experts during the pandemic more highly than did Republicans and independents. About three in ten Republicans said …

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Join Or Die: How Deontological Moral Intuitions Complicate Cooperation Amid The Covid-19 Pandemic, Alessandro Del Ponte

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

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Tackling COVID-19 requires universal collective action: everyone must play their part to reduce the spread of the virus and quell the pandemic. Yet, some people obstinately refuse to cooperate, irrespective of the consequences for themselves and others. In this note, I illustrate a key element of human psychology that hampers cooperation amid the pandemic: deontological moral intuitions. Deontological morality prescribes that moral taboos must be followed no matter the consequences. This means that people who consider Covid vaccines a moral taboo are prepared to suffer virtually any consequence rather than take the vaccine. I discuss the evolutionary basis of deontological …

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A Theory Of The Covid-19 Pandemic’S Impact On The Government-Citizen Relationship / Teorija Vpliva Pandemije Covid-19 Na Odnos Med Vlado In Državljani, Lewis Luartz

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

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This paper explores how crises, such as the COVID- 19 pandemic, can impact political behavior amid restrictions. Specifically, this paper builds a theoretical model suggesting the pandemic promoted restriction-oriented policies from the government in response to the crisis while promoting populist tendencies among citizens who disagree with those policies. Moreover, through a formal two-player extensive form game, the model promoted in this paper suggests restrictions are unpopular enough that citizens may push back on such policies regardless of crisis severity. The theoretical outcomes here have significant implications on governance, given that politicians care about re-election.

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