This report summarises a series of analyses conducted by the Social Wellbeing Agency to determine the effectiveness of several responses aiming to reduce the spread of COVID-19. This involved comparing data on COVID-19 policies to reported case rates in New Zealand and 49 similar countries.

Key findings:

• The most commonly implemented policies across the countries examined related to containment and closure, such as workplace closures and restriction of movement.
• These type of policies significantly reduced COVID-19 case numbers.
• About 40% of the time, countries introduced or strengthened policies in multiple areas at the same time (across the four groupings of containment and closure; economic; health system; and vaccinations).