Restrictive anti-Covid-19 government measures and the choice of citizens of the European Union at the end of 2020 between health benefits and economic relaxation - Statistical study

Abstract

This exposure is based on the responses of the European Union to the MEDEC question in a common questionnaire. More specifically, the MEDEC question has the following concrete wording: “What is your opinion on the consequences generated by two aspects imposed in Romania by the Covid-19 pandemic? Use for the answer a scale with six answer possibilities where the value 1 means that the health benefits are greater than the economic damage, and by score 6 you appreciate the situation of some economic damage greater than the health benefits. Response scores 2-5 indicate opinions between these two extreme positions”. From a statistical point of view, the answer to the MEDEC question is regarded as an observation from an ordinal categorical variable. The sample was completed in October 2020 and includes 24812 individuals interviewed in European Union between September 25 and October 7, 2020. Taking into account the answers received to the MEDEC question, the relations between the EU countries are specified. Practically is obtained the dendrogram resulting from an agglomerative hierarchical classification procedure. For the statistical analysis we have built the MVE indicator expressing Europeans' confidence in anti-Covid economic restrictions. MVE values ​​bring new clarification of the hierarchical classification. We mention here that the initial database attached to the survey was subsequently weighted taking into account the real proportions into the European populations of the interviewed persons in relation to their country, age category, gender or place of residence.