{"title":"Behavior and the Dynamics of Epidemics","authors":"A. Atkeson","doi":"10.1353/eca.2021.0008","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:A model of private and public behavior to mitigate disease transmission during the COVID-19 pandemic over the past year in the United States addresses two questions: What dynamics of infections and deaths should we expect to see from a pandemic? What are our options for mitigating the impact of a pandemic on public health? I find that behavior turns what would be a short and extremely sharp epidemic into a long, drawn-out one, with, at best, a modest impact on the long-run death toll from the disease. Absent the development of a technological solution, such as vaccines or life-saving therapeutics, additional public health interventions suffer from rapidly diminishing returns in improving long-run outcomes. In contrast, rapidly implemented nonpharmaceutical interventions, in combination with the rapid development of technological solutions, could have saved nearly 300,000 lives relative to what is now projected as of mid-June 2021 to occur over the long run.","PeriodicalId":51405,"journal":{"name":"Brookings Papers on Economic Activity","volume":"32 1","pages":"67 - 88"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7000,"publicationDate":"2021-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"13","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Brookings Papers on Economic Activity","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/eca.2021.0008","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 13
Abstract
ABSTRACT:A model of private and public behavior to mitigate disease transmission during the COVID-19 pandemic over the past year in the United States addresses two questions: What dynamics of infections and deaths should we expect to see from a pandemic? What are our options for mitigating the impact of a pandemic on public health? I find that behavior turns what would be a short and extremely sharp epidemic into a long, drawn-out one, with, at best, a modest impact on the long-run death toll from the disease. Absent the development of a technological solution, such as vaccines or life-saving therapeutics, additional public health interventions suffer from rapidly diminishing returns in improving long-run outcomes. In contrast, rapidly implemented nonpharmaceutical interventions, in combination with the rapid development of technological solutions, could have saved nearly 300,000 lives relative to what is now projected as of mid-June 2021 to occur over the long run.
期刊介绍：
The Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (BPEA) is a semi-annual academic conference and journal that pairs rigorous research with real-time policy analysis to address the most urgent economic challenges of the day. Working drafts of the papers are presented and discussed at conferences typically held twice each year, and the final versions of the papers and comments along with summaries of the general discussions are published in the journal several months later. The views expressed by the authors, discussants and conference participants in BPEA are strictly those of the authors, discussants and conference participants, and not of the Brookings Institution. As an independent think tank, the Brookings Institution does not take institutional positions on any issue.
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