The relative power of individual distancing efforts and public policies to curb the COVID-19 epidemics.

The relative power of individual distancing efforts and public policies to curb the COVID-19 epidemics.

Blog Article

Lockdown curbs the COVID-19 epidemics but at huge costs.Public debates question its impact compared to reliance on individual responsibility.We study how rationally chosen self-protective Control Box behavior impacts the spread of the epidemics and interacts with policies.We first assess the value of lockdown in terms of mortality compared to a counterfactual scenario that incorporates self-protection efforts; and second, assess how individual behavior modify the epidemic dynamics when public regulations change.We couple an SLIAR model, that includes asymptomatic transmission, with utility maximization: Individuals trade off economic and wellbeing costs from physical distancing with a lower infection risk.

Physical distancing effort depends on risk aversion, perceptions of the epidemics and average distancing effort in the population.Rational distancing effort is computed as a Nash Equilibrium.Equilibrium effort differs markedly from constant, stochastic or proportional contacts reduction.It adjusts to daily incidence of hospitalization in a way that creates a slightly decreasing plateau in epidemic prevalence.Calibration on French data shows that a business-as-usual benchmark yields an overestimation of the number of deaths by a factor of 10 compared to benchmarks with equilibrium efforts.

However, lockdown saves nearly twice as many lives as individual efforts alone.Public policies post-lockdown have Course a pied - Homme - Vetements - Singlet a limited impact as they partly crowd out individual efforts.Communication that increases risk salience is more effective.