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Category: Project

Description: There has been a wide range of responses by governments to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. Building on Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT), this report shows how the stringency of government responses to COVID-19 index can be used to better understand how governments are seeking to deter COVID-19 in the context of federalism. To do so, this report refines the stringency index introduced by OxCGRT and shows how it can be used to track federal and state-level government responses across states and time in Brazil. After introducing the refined version of this index (CGRT-BRFED), this report focuses on the social distancing policies adopted by the 26 states and the federal district of the Brazilian federation. Specifically, this report details the school, work, and public gathering closure policies that have been enacted and also describes the duration of these actions at the state-level in Brazil. The report highlights that there is significant heterogeneity across Brazil in the Social Distancing Stringency (SDS) Index of the CGRT-BRFED, and presents some preliminary findings related to the level of the social distancing stringency index and the rates of COVID-19 infection across states in Brazil. In future updates, the remaining indicators will be updated and a more detailed report of federal and state-level government policies will be analyzed so that we may be able to assess the complete set of policies that are being enacted as part of a stringent response to the pandemic.