Abstract
The effectiveness of containment measures has been shown to depend on both epidemiological and sociological mechanisms, most notably compliance with national lockdown rules. Yet, there has been growing discontent with social distancing rules during national lockdowns across several countries, particularly among certain demographic and socio-economic groups. Using a highly granular dataset on compliance of over 105,000 individuals between March and May 2020 in the United Kingdom (UK), we find that compliance with lockdown policies was initially high in the overall population during the earlier phase of the pandemic, but that compliance fell substantially over time, especially among specific segments of society. Warmer temperatures increased the non-compliance of individuals who are male, divorced, part-time employed, and/or parent of more than two children. Thus, while epidemiologically the virus spread was naturally more limited during the warmer period of 2020, sociologically the higher temperature led to lower individual-level compliance with public health measures. As long as new strains emerge, governments may therefore be required to complement vaccination campaigns with targeted and time limited restrictions. Since non-complying individuals at the beginning of the pandemic share certain characteristics with vaccination sceptics, understanding their compliance behaviour will remain essential for future policymaking.
Highlights
To analyze whether and how climatological conditions changed the association between demographic as well as socio-economic factors and non-compliance during the first national lockdown, we rely on a large survey by YouGov that recorded over 105,000 individual responses about compliance behavior nested in 147 sub-national administrative units in the United Kingdom (UK) between 23rd of March and 18th of May 2020
The UK has currently achieved high vaccination rates and vaccines appear effective against severe illness, the possibility of more vaccine resistant variants in the future may require public health measures and vaccination campaigns to be re-introduced in the years to come
An upward trend in non-compliance during the first lockdown is clearly visible with an accelerating rate when the plan for reopening was announced on 10th of May 2020. This upward trend of non-compliance was mirrored by the rising average temperature in the UK in the same period
Summary
In 2020 alone, the covid-19 pandemic cost over 1.8 million lives[1] and led to more than 33 million layoffs worldwide[2]. One important but unanswered question concerns the role of weather and how it influenced the willingness of individuals to comply with public health and social distancing measures as the year 2020 progressed into warmer and dryer months. Even if good weather may limit the virus spread in epidemiological terms and it does not significantly change the rate of social encounters as Wu et al found, increasing non-compliance among certain citizens may have impaired the effectiveness of containment measures during periods of higher temperature. To analyze whether and how climatological conditions changed the association between demographic as well as socio-economic factors and non-compliance during the first national lockdown, we rely on a large survey by YouGov that recorded over 105,000 individual responses about (declared) compliance behavior nested in 147 sub-national administrative units in the UK between 23rd of March and 18th of May 2020. As a result, finding strategies to ensure compliance and vaccination across reluctant social groups will be crucial to effectively respond to similar public health crises in the future
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