Context

The Exemplars in COVID-19 conceptual framework outlines key factors that could help explain countries’ COVID-19 burden and outcomes. These key factors are divided into two categories: (1) contextual and system factors (i.e., demographic, geographic, or environmental) and (2) policies and interventions. Contextual and system factors cannot easily be influenced in the near term, whereas policies and interventions factors can.

Although our research focuses primarily on the policy choices made by officials during the early phases of the pandemic, a country’s ability to limit COVID-19 transmission and related deaths could also be attributed to contextual factors, including those below.

Beyond policy interventions, other modifiable factors under the short-term control of countries and governments that can help shape countries’ pandemic outcomes (such as testing strategies, disease surveillance, laboratory capacities, contact tracing programs, case management, mobility restrictions, and surge response coordination), it is also important to consider preexisting system factors, such as the strength and structure of a country’s health care system and supply chains, in any analysis of a country’s COVID-19 preparedness and response.