question: COVID-19 arouses worldwide attention because huge health costs and economic losses it has caused Different countries have adopted different control measures This article explores the main factors affecting the spread of COVID-19 by the fault tree analysis (FTA) method A government response score table is developed on this basis Government responses of 14 countries are collected for assessment and are categorized into five groups according to their scores The suitable functions are fitted to the trend curve piecewise Correlation between typical patterns of government response and epidemic trends are analyzed It was found that a rigorous government response will shorten the time to the peak of confirmed curves and accelerate end of the epidemic This study will improve our understanding of government response measures to COVID-19 and enhance our emergency response capabilities in the future © 2020 ACM