Gauging the efficacy of the Philippines lockdown policies in response to COVID-19

This research was conducted in order to gauge the efficacy of the Philippines lockdown policies in response to COVID-19. After seeing a surge in cases accompanied by new variants, the Philippines put forth policies that some experts believe managed to decrease the number of cases through strict lockdowns. Other critics believe that these measures were excessively stringent. Hence, this paper presents metrics which gauges the Philippines’ pandemic response policies, through identifying the major lockdown policies, comparing them with a weekly case average and the stringency index, also considering how the unemployment rates were affected by such factors. The data for average daily cases, stringency index, and unemployment rates were sourced from various websites and organized into a table to be used as variables in figures that demonstrated the necessity, efficacy, and economic impact of the pandemic response. The results demonstrate a trend of extremely stringent measures that did, however, minimize the overall impact of the pandemic. It can be concluded that while the stringent measures minimized the spread of cases, the negative (economic, among others) effects outweigh the positive impacts of such measures.