The “Great Lockdown”: Inactive workers and mortality by Covid‐19

  1. Nicola Borri
  2. Francesco Drago
  3. Chiara Santantonio
  4. Francesco Sobbrio

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Abstract

In response to the Covid‐19 outbreak, the Italian Government imposed an economic lockdown on March 22, 2020, and ordered the closing of all non‐essential economic activities. This paper estimates the causal effects of this measure on mortality by Covid‐19 and on mobility patterns. The identification of the causal effects exploits the variation in the active population across municipalities induced by the economic lockdown. The difference‐in‐differences empirical design compares outcomes in municipalities above and below the median variation in the share of active population before and after the lockdown within a province, also controlling for municipality‐specific dynamics, daily shocks at the provincial level, and municipal unobserved characteristics. Our results show that the intensity of the economic lockdown is associated with a statistically significant reduction in mortality by Covid‐19 and, in particular, for age groups between 40 and 64 and older (with larger and more significant effects for individuals above 50). Back of the envelope calculations indicate that 4793 deaths were avoided, in the 26 days between April 5 and April 30, in the 3518 municipalities which experienced a more intense lockdown. Several robustness checks corroborate our empirical findings.

Article activity feed

  1. Version published to 10.1002/hec.4383
  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.09.17.20190595v3 on medRxiv
  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.09.17.20190595v2 on medRxiv
  4. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.09.17.20190595: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  5. Version published to 10.1101/2020.09.17.20190595v1 on medRxiv