The Effect of Large-Scale Anti-Contagion Policies on the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

1Governments around the world are responding to the novel coronavirus (COVID-2 19) pandemic 1 with unprecedented policies designed to slow the growth rate of 3 infections. Many actions, such as closing schools and restricting populations to 4 their homes, impose large and visible costs on society, but their benefits cannot 5 be directly observed and are currently understood only through process-based 6 simulations. [2][3][4] Here, we compile new data on 1,717 local, regional, and national 7 non-pharmaceutical interventions deployed in the ongoing pandemic across local-8 ities in China, South Korea, Italy, Iran, France, and the United States (US). We 9 then apply reduced-form econometric methods, commonly used to measure the ef-10 fect of policies on economic growth, 5, 6 to empirically evaluate the effect that these 11 anti-contagion policies have had on the growth rate of infections. In the absence of 12 policy actions, we estimate that early infections of COVID-19 exhibit exponential 13 growth rates of roughly 38% per day. We find that anti-contagion policies have 14 significantly and substantially slowed this growth. Some policies have different 15 impacts on different populations, but we obtain consistent evidence that the pol-16 icy packages now deployed are achieving large, beneficial, and measurable health 17 outcomes. We estimate that across these six countries, interventions prevented 18 or delayed on the order of 62 million confirmed cases, corresponding to averting : medRxiv preprint 23The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing societies worldwide to make consequential policy decisions 24 with limited information. After containment of the initial outbreak failed, attention turned to 25 implementing non-pharmaceutical interventions designed to slow contagion of the virus. In general, 26 these policies aim to decrease virus transmission by reducing contact among individuals within 27 or between populations, such as by closing restaurants or restricting travel, thereby slowing the 28 spread of COVID-19 to a manageable rate. These large-scale anti-contagion policies are informed 29 by epidemiological simulations 2, 4, 8, 9 and a small number of natural experiments in past epidemics. 10 30 However, the actual effects of these policies on infection rates in the ongoing pandemic are unknown. 31Because the modern world has never confronted this pathogen, nor deployed anti-contagion policies 32 of such scale and scope, it is crucial that direct measurements of policy impacts be used alongside 33 numerical simulations in current decision-making. 34Societies around the world are weighing whether the health benefits of anti-contagion policies 35 are worth their social and economic costs. Many of these costs are plainly seen; for example, 36 business restrictions increase unemployment and school closures impact educational outcomes. It is 37 therefore not surprising that some populations have hesitated before implementing such dramatic 38 policies, especially when their costs are visible while their health benefits -infec...

Effectiveness of isolation, testing, contact tracing and physical distancing on reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in different settings

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Fatalism, Beliefs, and Behaviors During the COVID-19 Pandemic

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