Impacts of export restrictions on the global personal protective equipment trade network during COVID-19

TL;DR

This paper models how export restrictions during COVID-19 worsened PPE shortages globally, showing that such policies accelerate shortages and hinder effective PPE distribution, ultimately impairing pandemic response.

Contribution

It introduces an integrated network model combining disease and shortage contagion dynamics to analyze the impact of export restrictions on global PPE trade during COVID-19.

Findings

Export restrictions accelerate PPE shortage contagion.

Top exporters mainly determine shortage patterns.

Restrictions lead to inefficient PPE allocation.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a dramatic surge in demand for personal protective equipment (PPE) worldwide. Many countries have imposed export restrictions on PPE to ensure the sufficient domestic supply. The surging demand and export restrictions cause shortage contagions on the global PPE trade network. Here, we develop an integrated network model, which integrates a metapopulation model and a threshold model, to investigate the shortage contagion patterns. The metapopulation model captures disease contagion across countries. The threshold model captures the shortage contagion on the global PPE trade network. Results show that, the shortage contagion patterns are mainly decided by top exporters. Export restrictions exacerbate the shortages of PPE and cause the shortage contagion to transmit even faster than the disease contagion. Besides, export restrictions lead to ineffective and inefficient allocation of PPE around the world, which has no benefits for the world to fight against the pandemic.