The first 100 days of COVID-19 coronavirus – How efficient did country health systems perform to flatten the curve in the first wave?

In this novel paper, we make use of a non-parametric method known as Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to analyse the 31 most infected countries during the first 100 days since the outbreak of the COVID-19 coronavirus for the efficiency in containing the spread of the virus – a question yet to be answered in the literature. Our model showed 12 of the 31 countries in our sample were efficient and 19 inefficient in the use of resources to manage the flattening of their COVID-19 contagion curves. Among the worst performers were some of the richest countries in the world, Germany, Canada, the USA and Austria, with efficiency between 50 and 60 per cent - more inefficient than Italy, France and Belgium, who were some of those hardest hit by the spread of the virus.