IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v17y2020i19p7283-d424087.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Timing and Intensity of Social Distancing to Flatten the COVID-19 Curve: The Case of Spain

Author

Listed:
  • Miguel Casares

    (Departamento de Economía and INARBE, Universidad Pública de Navarra, Campus de ArrosadÍa, 31006 Pamplona, Spain
    Current address: Departamento de Economía and INARBE, Universidad Pública de Navarra, 31006 Pamplona, Spain.
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Hashmat Khan

    (Department of Economics, Carleton University, C-870 Loeb Building, 1125 Colonel By Driver, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

Abstract

The continued spread of COVID-19 suggests a significant possibility of reimposing the lockdowns and stricter social distancing similar to the early phase of pandemic control. We present a dynamic model to quantify the impact of isolation for the contagion curves. The model is calibrated to the COVID-19 outbreak in Spain to study the effects of the isolation enforcement following the declaration of the state of alarm (14 March 2020). The simulations indicate that both the timing and the intensity of the isolation enforcement are crucial for the COVID-19 spread. For example, a 4-day earlier intervention for social distancing would have reduced the number of COVID-19 infected people by 67%. The model also informs us that the isolation enforcement does not delay the peak day of the epidemic but slows down its end. When relaxing social distancing, a reduction of the contagion probability (with the generalization of preventive actions, such as face mask wearing and hands sanitizing) is needed to overcome the effect of a rise in the number of interpersonal encounters. We report a threshold level for the contagion pace to avoid a second COVID-19 outbreak in Spain.

Suggested Citation

  • Miguel Casares & Hashmat Khan, 2020. "The Timing and Intensity of Social Distancing to Flatten the COVID-19 Curve: The Case of Spain," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(19), pages 1-14, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:19:p:7283-:d:424087
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/19/7283/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/19/7283/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cooper, Ian & Mondal, Argha & Antonopoulos, Chris G., 2020. "A SIR model assumption for the spread of COVID-19 in different communities," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    2. James H. Stock, 2020. "Data Gaps and the Policy Response to the Novel Coronavirus," NBER Working Papers 26902, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Andrew Atkeson, 2020. "What Will be the Economic Impact of COVID-19 in the US? Rough Estimates of Disease Scenarios," Staff Report 595, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Eugenio F. Sánchez-Úbeda & Pedro Sánchez-Martín & Macarena Torrego-Ellacuría & Ángel Del Rey-Mejías & Manuel F. Morales-Contreras & José-Luis Puerta, 2021. "Flexibility and Bed Margins of the Community of Madrid’s Hospitals during the First Wave of the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(7), pages 1-22, March.
    2. Zen Yang Ang & Kit Yee Cheah & Md. Sharif Shakirah & Weng Hong Fun & Jailani Anis-Syakira & Yuke-Lin Kong & Sondi Sararaks, 2021. "Malaysia’s Health Systems Response to COVID-19," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(21), pages 1-26, October.
    3. Xue Zhang & Mildred E. Warner, 2020. "COVID-19 Policy Differences across US States: Shutdowns, Reopening, and Mask Mandates," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(24), pages 1-17, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kumar, Anand & Priya, Bhawna & Srivastava, Samir K., 2021. "Response to the COVID-19: Understanding implications of government lockdown policies," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 76-94.
    2. Pablo D. Fajgelbaum & Amit Khandelwal & Wookun Kim & Cristiano Mantovani & Edouard Schaal, 2021. "Optimal Lockdown in a Commuting Network," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 503-522, December.
    3. repec:zbw:bofitp:2020_015 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Altig, Dave & Baker, Scott & Barrero, Jose Maria & Bloom, Nicholas & Bunn, Philip & Chen, Scarlet & Davis, Steven J. & Leather, Julia & Meyer, Brent & Mihaylov, Emil & Mizen, Paul & Parker, Nicholas &, 2020. "Economic uncertainty before and during the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    5. Checo Ariadne & Grigoli Francesco & Mota Jose M., 2022. "Assessing Targeted Containment Policies to Fight COVID-19," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 22(1), pages 159-196, January.
    6. Martin Bodenstein & Giancarlo Corsetti & Luca Guerrieri, 2022. "Social distancing and supply disruptions in a pandemic," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(2), pages 681-721, May.
    7. David Berger & Kyle Herkenhoff & Chengdai Huang & Simon Mongey, 2022. "Testing and Reopening in an SEIR Model," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 43, pages 1-21, January.
    8. Brodeur, Abel & Cook, Nikolai & Wright, Taylor, 2021. "On the effects of COVID-19 safer-at-home policies on social distancing, car crashes and pollution," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    9. Lin William Cong & Ke Tang & Bing Wang & Jingyuan Wang, 2021. "An AI-assisted Economic Model of Endogenous Mobility and Infectious Diseases: The Case of COVID-19 in the United States," Papers 2109.10009, arXiv.org.
    10. Masayuki Morikawa, 2022. "Work‐from‐home productivity during the COVID‐19 pandemic: Evidence from Japan," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(2), pages 508-527, April.
    11. Miguel Casares & Paul Gomme & Hashmat Khan, 2022. "COVID‐19 pandemic and economic scenarios for Ontario," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(S1), pages 503-539, February.
    12. Hong Ru & Endong Yang & Kunru Zou, 2021. "Combating the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of the SARS Imprint," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(9), pages 5606-5615, September.
    13. de Montjoye, Yves-Alexandre & Ramadorai, Tarun & Valletti, Tommaso & Walther, Ansgar, 2021. "Privacy, adoption, and truthful reporting: A simple theory of contact tracing applications," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    14. Eichenbaum, Martin S. & Rebelo, Sergio & Trabandt, Mathias, 2022. "The macroeconomics of testing and quarantining," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    15. Garriga, Carlos & Manuelli, Rody & Sanghi, Siddhartha, 2022. "Optimal management of an epidemic: Lockdown, vaccine and value of life," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    16. Ambrocio, Gene & Juselius, Mikael, 2020. "Dealing with the costs of the COVID-19 pandemic – what are the fiscal options?," BoF Economics Review 2/2020, Bank of Finland.
    17. Thomas Kruse & Philipp Strack, 2020. "Optimal Control of an Epidemic through Social Distancing," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2229R, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Jul 2020.
    18. Çakmaklı, Cem & Demiralp, Selva & Özcan, Şebnem Kalemli & Yeşiltaş, Sevcan & Yıldırım, Muhammed A., 2023. "COVID-19 and emerging markets: A SIR model, demand shocks and capital flows," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    19. Andr� Kall�k Anundsen & Bj�rnar Karlsen Kivedal & Erling R�ed Larsen & Leif Anders Thorsrud, 2020. "Behavioral changes and policy effects during Covid-19," Working Papers No 07/2020, Centre for Applied Macro- and Petroleum economics (CAMP), BI Norwegian Business School.
    20. Michael Barnett & Greg Buchak & Constantine Yannelis, 2023. "Epidemic responses under uncertainty," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 120(2), pages 2208111120-, January.
    21. Chernozhukov, Victor & Kasahara, Hiroyuki & Schrimpf, Paul, 2021. "Causal impact of masks, policies, behavior on early covid-19 pandemic in the U.S," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 220(1), pages 23-62.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:19:p:7283-:d:424087. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.