2020/05/20 by Martin Huber, Huber, Martin, Henrika Langen +1
Mathematics · Social Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #COVID-19 epidemiological studies #Health disparities and outcomes #COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2005.11278
We assess the impact of COVID-19 response measures implemented in Germany and\nSwitzerland on cumulative COVID-19-related hospitalization and death rates. Our\nanalysis exploits the fact that the epidemic was more advanced in some regions\nthan in others when certain lockdown measures came into force, based on\nmeasuring health outcomes relative to the region-specific start of the epidemic\nand comparing outcomes across regions with earlier and later start dates. When\nestimating the effect of the relative timing of measures, we control for\nregional characteristics and initial epidemic trends by linear regression\n(Germany and Switzerland), doubly robust estimation (Germany), or synthetic\ncontrols (Switzerland). We find for both countries that a relatively later\nexposure to the measures entails higher cumulative hospitalization and death\nrates on region-specific days after the outbreak of the epidemic, suggesting\nthat an earlier imposition of measures is more effective than a later one. For\nGermany, we also evaluate curfews (as introduced in a subset of states) based\non cross-regional variation. We do not find any effects of curfews on top of\nthe federally imposed contact restriction that banned groups of more than 2\nindividuals. Finally, an analysis of mobility patterns in Switzerland shows an\nimmediate behavioral effect of the lockdown in terms of reduced mobility.\n