Covid restrictions took longer to ease in India than several of its peers

Value of stringency index remained higher than several large economies between 2020 and 2023

Restrictions that began with India’s lockdown three years ago, among the strictest in the world, also took longer than many other large economies to loosen.

The value of the Covid-19 government response stringency index was at 100, indicating the strictest possible restrictions in place, in March 2020. It slipped below 50 only in 2022, show numbers from tracker Our World in Data that compiles information from the index developed at Oxford University. Many others in the top five economies of the world had fewer restrictions or unwound sooner, shows a <Business Standard> analysis of monthly data across countries.

Germany’s stringency