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HealthEducationTransportLaborSocial CareGovernanceICT and MediaEconomic affairsJustice and Rights

Trackers

Covid 19 Health Systems Response MonitorIMF Policy Responses to Covid-19Covid-19 Civic Freedom TrackerOxford Covid-19 Government Response TrackerHarvard Coronavirus Economic Tracker
IIGH-UNU GitHub

EPIC Tracker

The UNU Evidence, Policy, and Interventions for COVID-19 Tracker (UNU EPIC Tracker) is an inventory of the public health, economic, social and community measures taken to address COVID-19 across all countries. These measures include government policies and public sector interventions whose impacts are felt across all levels of society. A living platform, the EPIC Tracker will be regularly updated to include new policies, to reflect country responses, and to integrate other sources of data.

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HealthEducationInternal affairsLabourSocial CareEconomic affairsJustice and RightsICT and Media

Trackers

COVID-19 Health Systems Response MonitorIMF Policy Responses to COVID-19COVID-19 Civic Freedom TrackerHarvard Coronavirus Economic TrackerOECD Country Policy Responses
IIGH-UNU GitHub

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About the Tracker


The EPIC Tracker is a comprehensive online inventory of the health, economic, and social policy interventions and measures adopted by governments across the world in response to COVID-19.


The international community was not prepared to respond to the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic. Few countries had conducted simulations to consider and identify appropriate responses to such an infectious disease outbreak, which means that governments are having to make quick decisions with limited time and data to consider their ramifications. As the unintended consequences of many of these unprecedented containment measures are identified, some countries are also adopting adaptive measures to mitigate them.


We must learn from this pandemic and be better prepared next time. But even as countries across the world continue to grapple with COVID-19, they can draw and learn from each other’s responses in real-time. However, this requires the systematic collection and analysis of comprehensive data on government policies across countries to contain the epidemic and measures to mitigate the related health, social and economic impact.   



Purpose


The data from the EPIC Tracker can be used:


  • As a menu of options for countries to consider within their own contexts as local and regional epidemics evolve; and
  • To facilitate further analyses of the direct and unintended impacts of policies and interventions (both in real-time and retrospectively) to identify effective responses.


The tracker will include government policies and public sector interventions aimed at both preventing the transmission of the virus and treating COVID-19 patients, as well as other measures to mitigate the indirect impact of COVID-19 policies (such as lockdowns and travel restrictions) on individuals, communities, and businesses.


The online inventory will be a global resource available for policy-makers, researchers, civil society groups and others involved in global and national responses so they can identify appropriate policy options that apply to their contexts, and produce evidence of their impact.



Added Value


Several policy trackers have been developed to monitor government responses and interventions in specific sectors or regions, with varying levels of validation. The EPIC tracker systematically collates data from other policy trackers into an integrated multi-sectoral platform, which also allows for additional data to be imputed through crowd-sourcing. The entries are then validated using a systematic approach to ensure data comprehensiveness and reliability. The EPIC tracker:


The EPIC tracker:

  • Is an integrator of multi-sectoral policies, including health, social care, education, fiscal and economic affairs, labour, legal and governance sectors
  • Includes direct Covid-19 policies for prevention and treatment, and indirect policies to mitigate the impacts of the Covid-19 response
  • Provides standardised data and types of interventions for comparison and analysis
  • Is a global dataset with contributors from all regions
  • Is curated and data sources are verified by the UN University and its network of academic and UN partners.



Functionality


The online platform provides a searchable and user-friendly database of policies and interventions that can be searched by region, country, sector, intervention type, population group, and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG).


For each country, the EPIC tracker provides a list of policies and interventions that have been introduced in response to COVID-19 across sectors, including timestamps to enable the development of a timeline of policy responses and their duration. UNU-IIGH will use these data to compile and update country profiles.


The EPIC tracker enables comparisons of responses across countries, and it will soon support the visualization of where specific policies have been or are being introduced with a heat world map.


To enable better visualization and use of the data, the EPIC tracker will soon be linked to other data sources, such as epidemiological and health system data on COVID-19 statistics, as well as data on other related indicators that become available (e.g. reported cases of domestic violence).



Examples of how to use the EPIC tracker


Policy and intervention options

One size cannot fit all in responding to this pandemic, and there is insufficient time to wait for evidence on effective policies and interventions to make decisions. Policy-makers, as well as the advocates and civil society who need to inspire and influence government policy-makers, can use the EPIC tracker to consider and draw from the measures being taken in other countries, especially those with social, health system, cultural and economic commonalities.


Assessing direct and indirect impacts

The EPIC tracker will provide data that can be used to assess policy impacts and conduct a range of policy-relevant analyses. Below are a few examples:


  • Assess the effectiveness of individual and combined policies on containing the pandemic
  • Determine the social, economic or political factors that moderate and mediate the country-level impacts of various policies
  • Conduct gender analyses of policies to produce recommendations for governments on prioritizing and implementing gender-responsive interventions
  • Analyse implementation strategies across countries, considering the time and contextual specificities that have influenced the response
  • Assess the impact of policies on specific groups, such as women, healthcare workers, the elderly, migrant workers, refugees, people living with disabilities and people living in informal settlements
  • Identify low-cost innovations and interventions that are successful, particularly from the Global South.

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