IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp13927.html

Interventions with Positive Side-Effects: COVID-19 Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions and Infectious Diseases in Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Kaiser, Micha

    (Copenhagen Business School)

  • Otterbach, Steffen

    (University of Hohenheim)

  • Sousa-Poza, Alfonso

    (University of Hohenheim)

  • Bloom, David E.

    (Harvard School of Public Health)

Abstract

To assess the efficacy of Covid-19 non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) on infectious disease containment in Europe, we first use weekly 2015-20 data on the spread of influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) to compare the 2019-20 season of these diseases with the previous five. Although the magnitude of results differs between countries, we document much stronger end-of-season declines in infections in the most recent outbreak than in the earlier ones, implying that they may be driven by NPIs implemented in 2020 to combat Covid-19. To test this conjecture, we use detailed country-specific weekly information on Covid-19 NPIs to estimate several panel models that relate NPI implementation to disease incidence across countries. Not only do certain measures significantly reduce the spread of Covid-19, they also curtail the spread of influenza and RSV. Nonetheless, although we identify workplace closures as a particularly effective measure, we find no evidence for the efficacy of other NPIs such as travel restrictions.

Suggested Citation

  • Kaiser, Micha & Otterbach, Steffen & Sousa-Poza, Alfonso & Bloom, David E., 2020. "Interventions with Positive Side-Effects: COVID-19 Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions and Infectious Diseases in Europe," IZA Discussion Papers 13927, IZA Network @ LISER.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13927
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp13927.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. J. O. Lloyd-Smith & S. J. Schreiber & P. E. Kopp & W. M. Getz, 2005. "Superspreading and the effect of individual variation on disease emergence," Nature, Nature, vol. 438(7066), pages 355-359, November.
    2. repec:aei:rpaper:1008561701 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Thunström, Linda & Newbold, Stephen C. & Finnoff, David & Ashworth, Madison & Shogren, Jason F., 2020. "The Benefits and Costs of Using Social Distancing to Flatten the Curve for COVID-19," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(2), pages 179-195, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    RePEc Biblio mentions

    As found on the RePEc Biblio, the curated bibliography for Economics:
    1. > Economics of Welfare > Health Economics > Economics of Pandemics > Specific pandemics > Covid-19 > Health > Distancing and Lockdown > Effect on Health

    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. Lazebnik, Teddy & Spiegel, Orr, 2025. "Individual variation affects outbreak magnitude and predictability in multi-pathogen model of pigeons visiting dairy farms," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 499(C).
    2. Tardy, Olivia & Lenglos, Christophe & Lai, Sandra & Berteaux, Dominique & Leighton, Patrick A., 2023. "Rabies transmission in the Arctic: An agent-based model reveals the effects of broad-scale movement strategies on contact risk between Arctic foxes," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 476(C).
    3. Wei Zhong, 2017. "Simulating influenza pandemic dynamics with public risk communication and individual responsive behavior," Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 475-495, December.
    4. Luc E. Coffeng & Sake J. de Vlas, 2022. "Predicting epidemics and the impact of interventions in heterogeneous settings: Standard SEIR models are too pessimistic," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 185(S1), pages 28-35, November.
    5. Joseph B. Bak-Coleman & Ian Kennedy & Morgan Wack & Andrew Beers & Joseph S. Schafer & Emma S. Spiro & Kate Starbird & Jevin D. West, 2022. "Combining interventions to reduce the spread of viral misinformation," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 6(10), pages 1372-1380, October.
    6. Liana R Woskie & Jonathan Hennessy & Valeria Espinosa & Thomas C Tsai & Swapnil Vispute & Benjamin H Jacobson & Ciro Cattuto & Laetitia Gauvin & Michele Tizzoni & Alex Fabrikant & Krishna Gadepalli & , 2021. "Early social distancing policies in Europe, changes in mobility & COVID-19 case trajectories: Insights from Spring 2020," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(6), pages 1-12, June.
    7. Kris V. Parag & Robin N. Thompson & Christl A. Donnelly, 2022. "Are epidemic growth rates more informative than reproduction numbers?," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 185(S1), pages 5-15, November.
    8. Thomas Ash & Antonio M. Bento & Daniel Kaffine & Akhil Rao & Ana I. Bento, 2022. "Author Correction: Disease-economy trade-offs under alternative epidemic control strategies," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-1, December.
    9. Maarten Jan Wensink & Linda Juel Ahrenfeldt & Sören Möller, 2020. "Variability Matters," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(1), pages 1-8, December.
    10. Nicolò Gatti & Beatrice Retali, 2021. "Fighting the spread of Covid-19 : was the Swiss lockdown worth it?," IdEP Economic Papers 2101, USI Università della Svizzera italiana.
    11. Lingcai Kong & Jinfeng Wang & Weiguo Han & Zhidong Cao, 2016. "Modeling Heterogeneity in Direct Infectious Disease Transmission in a Compartmental Model," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-13, February.
    12. Carolyn Ingram & Vicky Downey & Mark Roe & Yanbing Chen & Mary Archibald & Kadri-Ann Kallas & Jaspal Kumar & Peter Naughton & Cyril Onwuelazu Uteh & Alejandro Rojas-Chaves & Shibu Shrestha & Shiraz Sy, 2021. "COVID-19 Prevention and Control Measures in Workplace Settings: A Rapid Review and Meta-Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(15), pages 1-26, July.
    13. Fabian Stephany & Michael Dunn & Steven Sawyer & Vili Lehdonvirta, 2020. "Distancing Bonus Or Downscaling Loss? The Changing Livelihood of Us Online Workers in Times of COVID‐19," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 111(3), pages 561-573, July.
    14. Robin N Thompson & Christopher A Gilligan & Nik J Cunniffe, 2016. "Detecting Presymptomatic Infection Is Necessary to Forecast Major Epidemics in the Earliest Stages of Infectious Disease Outbreaks," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(4), pages 1-18, April.
    15. André de Palma & Nathalie Picard & Stef Proost, 2021. "SCARE: when Economics meets Epidemiology with COVID-19, first wave," Thema Working Papers 2021-10, THEMA (Théorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), CY Cergy-Paris University, ESSEC and CNRS.
    16. Nicolò Gatti & Beatrice Retali, 2021. "Saving lives during the COVID-19 pandemic: the benefits of the first Swiss lockdown," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 157(1), pages 1-21, December.
    17. Peter T. Leeson & Louis Rouanet, 2021. "Externality and COVID‐19," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 87(4), pages 1107-1118, April.
    18. Li, Ming & Huo, Liang'an, 2025. "Effect of time-varying validity of individual interaction on co-evolution of awareness and epidemics in a multiplex high-order network," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 499(C).
    19. Zengmiao Wang & Peng Yang & Ruixue Wang & Luca Ferretti & Lele Zhao & Shan Pei & Xiaoli Wang & Lei Jia & Daitao Zhang & Yonghong Liu & Ziyan Liu & Quanyi Wang & Christophe Fraser & Huaiyu Tian, 2024. "Estimating the contribution of setting-specific contacts to SARS-CoV-2 transmission using digital contact tracing data," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-8, December.
    20. T Alex Perkins & Thomas W Scott & Arnaud Le Menach & David L Smith, 2013. "Heterogeneity, Mixing, and the Spatial Scales of Mosquito-Borne Pathogen Transmission," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(12), pages 1-16, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • H12 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Crisis Management
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:iza:izadps:dp13927. 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: Mark Fallak (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaalu.html .

    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.