The Economic Impact of the Pandemic in Rwanda: An Analysis of Firm-level VAT Data

There are substantial differences in the spread of the pandemic and the policy response to it between high and low-income countries (LICs). In terms of case numbers, the pandemic has affected high and middle income countries (HICs and MICs) much more severely than LICs: deaths per million people have remained typically well below 1 in the latter group, compared to a typical range of 5 to 10 (with peaks above that) for many HICs. Despite this, the stringency of policy responses in LICs have often been similar to those adopted in HICs. However, these measures have typically been introduced much earlier than in HICs: when median cases per million people were 0.57, versus 97.3 in HICs.