The impact of political culture's characteristics on non-pharmaceutical intervention effectiveness

Different countries implemented in 2020 combinations of non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI). These governments imposed restrictions difficult to enforce in order to protect public health. This is an interesting quasi-experimental setting to test the compliance with government prescriptions of populations with different political cultures. With European Social Survey data, and the John Hopkins University dataset on COVID-19 around the world, we aim to test the impact in a sample of European countries of different political culture characteristics on the spread of coronavirus, and thus on compliance with NPIs. Results show that countries with higher social capital follow NPIs more strictly, that trust plays a role.