Mortality and Health Spending during the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Comparing Central, Eastern and Western Europe

The article shows the relationships between the COVID and non-COVID deaths during the first year of the pandemic, compared with the stringency of restrictions imposed and the compul- sory spending on healthcare. We compare these relationships among European countries, analysing weekly data and applying cointegration models. Regarding the pandemic's inten- sity, we split the period into two: March - August 2020 and September 2020 - February 2021. We find that, most often, if there was a relationship between the stringency index and COVID or non-COVID mortality, it was usually positive and mortality driven. That sug- gests that although the governments tailored the restrictions to the growing mortality rate, they were unable to control the pandemic. No relationships, or negative ones, were most of- ten found in these countries where the spending on healthcare was the highest (i.e., Northern and Western European countries). The biggest weekly changes in non-COVID deaths during the second sub-period were observed in the Central and Eastern European countries, where government healthcare expenditures per capita are the lowest.