The common interests of health protection and the economy: evidence from scenario calculations of COVID-19 containment policies

Abstract

We develop a novel approach integrating epidemiological and economic models that allows data-based simulations during a pandemic. We examine the economically optimal opening strategy that can be reconciled with the containment of a pandemic. The empirical evidence is based on data from Germany during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Our empirical findings reject the view that there is necessarily a conflict between health protection and economic interests and suggest a non-linear U-shape relationship: it is in the interest of public health and the economy to balance non-pharmaceutical interventions in a manner that further reduces the incidence of infections. Our simulations suggest that a prudent strategy that leads to a reproduction number of around 0.75 is economically optimal. Too restrictive policies cause massive economic costs. Conversely, policies that are too loose lead to higher death tolls and higher economic costs in the long run. We suggest this finding as a guide for policy-makers in balancing interests of public health and the economy during a pandemic.

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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.08.14.20175224: (What is this?)

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

Table 1: Rigor

NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

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.

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