State-level Citizen Response to COVID-19 Containment Measures in Brazil and Mexico

Claire Dunn,Isabel Laterzo

doi:10.1177/1866802x211057135

Abstract

In Brazil and Mexico, presidents failed to take swift, national action to stop the spread of COVID-19. Instead, the burden of imposing and enforcing public health measures has largely fallen to subnational leaders, resulting in varied approaches within each country and conflicting messaging from elites. We likewise see variation in compliance with social distancing across subnational units. To explain this variation, we contend that citizen responses are driven both by the comprehensiveness of state policies and whether they take cues from national or subnational elites. We hypothesize that support for national and subnational elites, and the nature of the state-level policy response, affect citizen compliance with public health guidelines. In both countries, we find that support for the governor has an interactive relationship with policy response. In Brazil, support for the president is associated with lower compliance. In Mexico, this effect is not present. We argue that these distinct relationships are due to the different cues emerging from each leader.

Highlights

On January 30, 2020 the World Health Organization (WHO) declared SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, a public health emergency of international concern, its highest level of alarm
While we expect that in states where there are stronger, formal restrictions in place, citizens will follow public health guidelines the most, we argue that this response is likely to be tempered by political allegiances
We argue that instead citizens’ allegiances to specific politicians —in this case the governor or the president—should dictate the degree to which they adhere to public health guidelines

Summary

Introduction

On January 30, 2020 the World Health Organization (WHO) declared SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, a public health emergency of international concern, its highest level of alarm Following this declaration, the global public health community increasingly promoted social distancing measures, including stay-at-home orders, travel restrictions, and mandatory business closures. The global public health community increasingly promoted social distancing measures, including stay-at-home orders, travel restrictions, and mandatory business closures Despite this urgent declaration, global leadership, and in turn their citizens, responded in a multitude of ways. Some nations enacted coordinated lock-downs, while others enforced piece-meal, lackluster measures Among the latter category were many federal nations who struggled to effectively coordinate responses and contain the virus (Bennouna et al, 2021; Giraudy et al, 2020; Huberfeld et al, 2020; Knaul et al, 2021; Touchton et al, 2021). This resulted in uncoordinated policy across subnational units, but often significant within-country variation in how citizens responded to the pandemic

Objectives

Results

Discussion

Conclusion