COVID-19 lockdowns and a response model to health, economic and food anxiety

Abstract

Pandemics create survival uncertainty through infection possibilities, food scarcity, and unemployment. Being the largest democracy in the world, we have explored the response of Indian citizens on the COVID-19’s lockdown and defined an anxiety response model using PLS based Structural Equation Modeling(SEM). For a comprehensive understanding, we have measured the response at two levels of individual and government. Though the types of anxieties are related, we observed that a specific response is linked with a specific type of anxiety and all responses are not anxiety-driven. We have found that the response mechanism of Health and Food anxieties follow very different paths and that the role of information is not significant in all anxieties. Our results will help policymakers in understanding how to respond to a crisis and optimize policy implementation accordingly. It will further help the scholars understand the difference in the anxieties caused by the pandemic and the layers of responses individuals take in such situations.