2021/03/26 by Niwa, Makoto, Hara, Yasushi, Matsuo, Yusuke +4
#FOS: Economics and business #General Economics (econ.GN)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2103.14298
During the global spread of COVID-19, Japan has been among the top countries to maintain a relatively low number of infections, despite implementing limited institutional interventions. Using a Tokyo Metropolitan dataset, this study investigated how these limited intervention policies have affected public health and economic conditions in the COVID-19 context. A causal loop analysis suggested that there were risks to prematurely terminating such interventions. On the basis of this result and subsequent quantitative modelling, we found that the short-term effectiveness of a short-term pre-emptive stay-at-home request caused a resurgence in the number of positive cases, whereas an additional request provided a limited negative add-on effect for economic measures (e.g. the number of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) communications and restaurant visits). These findings suggest the superiority of a mild and continuous intervention as a long-term countermeasure under epidemic pressures when compared to strong intermittent interventions.