Impacts of introducing and lifting nonpharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 daily growth rate and compliance in the United States
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Singh, Surya
Shaikh, Mujaheed
Hauck, Katharina
Miraldo, Marisa
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
We evaluate the impacts of implementing and lifting nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) in US counties on the daily growth rate of COVID-19 cases and compliance, measured through the percentage of devices staying home, and evaluate whether introducing and lifting NPIs protecting selective populations is an effective strategy. We use difference-in-differences methods, leveraging on daily county-level data and exploit the staggered introduction and lifting of policies across counties over time. We also assess heterogenous impacts due to counties’ population characteristics, namely ethnicity and household income. Results show that introducing NPIs led to a reduction in cases through the percentage of devices staying home. When counties lifted NPIs, they benefited from reduced mobility outside of the home during the lockdown, but only for a short period. In the long term, counties experienced diminished health and mobility gains accrued from previously implemented policies. Notably, we find heterogenous impacts due to population characteristics implying that measures can mitigate the disproportionate burden of COVID-19 on marginalized populations and find that selectively targeting populations may not be effective.
Date Issued
2021-03-23
Date Acceptance
2021-02-08
Citation
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of USA, 2021, 118 (12)
ISSN
0027-8424
Publisher
National Academy of Sciences
Journal / Book Title
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of USA
Volume
118
Issue
12
Copyright Statement
© 2021 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).
Subjects
Coronavirus
Policy
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN e2021359118
Date Publish Online
2021-03-03