Effectiveness of the emergency public activity restrictions on COVID-19 epidemiological parameter in East Java Province, Indonesia: An ecological study

Abstract

Introduction: This study was aimed to analyze the effectiveness of the emergency activity restriction policy implementation to slow down the daily incidence and mortality of COVID-19 in the East Java Province of Indonesia. Methods: An ecological study design was used for this research as the data were acquired from the daily confirmed cases and mortality reports of COVID-19 in 29 regencies and 9 cities in East Java Province of Indonesia from June 14 to July 25, 2021. Interrupted time series using autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) was used for the analysis. Results: The mean of COVID-19 daily incidence and mortality was increasing during the implementation of emergency public activity restriction. The result of the ARIMA interrupted time series reported that the implementation of emergency public activity restriction significantly (P < 0.05) affects the increase of COVID-19 daily incidence in 18 cities and daily mortality in 9 cities. Analysis on the provincial level showed that there was no reduction both in daily incidence and mortality during the implementation of emergency public activity restriction. Conclusion: The study reported that the implementation of emergency public activity restrictions was not beneficial in reducing COVID-19 daily incidence and mortality in the East Java Province of Indonesia during the 1 st month of policy implementation.