Abstract
Daily data at the U.S. county level suggest that coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases and deaths are lower in counties where a higher share of people have stayed in the same county (or travelled less to other counties). This observation is tested formally by using a difference-in-difference design controlling for county-fixed effects and time-fixed effects, where weekly changes in COVID-19 cases or deaths are regressed on weekly changes in the share of people who have stayed in the same county during the previous 14 days. A counterfactual analysis based on the formal estimation results suggests that staying in the same county has the potential of reducing total weekly COVID-19 cases and deaths in the U.S. as much as by 139,503 and by 23,445, respectively.
Highlights
As of September 2nd, 2020, the number of people who have lost their lives in the U.S due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has reached 181; 129, whereas the number of cases has reached 5; 909; 266.1 Since COVID-19 spreads mainly through person-to-person contact (e.g., see Chan, Yuan, Kok, To, Chu, Yang, Xing, Liu, Yip, Poon, et al (2020)), di¤erent layers of government in the U.S reacted to this development by implementing travel restrictions, both internationally and domestically, which is similar to other countries or other time periods (e.g., see Bajardi, Poletto, Ramasco, Tizzoni, Colizza, and Vespignani (2011), Wang and Taylor (2016), Charu, Zeger, Gog, Bjørnstad, Kissler, Simonsen, Grenfell, and Viboud (2017) or Fang, Wang, and Yang (2020))
Descriptive statistics suggest that both COVID-19 cases and deaths are lower in counties where a higher share of people have stayed in the same county during the previous 14 days
The estimation results suggest that if a person lives in a county where the average person has travelled less compared to the previous week, it is better for this person to stay in her county to reduce the possibility of catching COVID-19 as her county has lower COVID-19 cases or deaths due to other people in that county travelling less
Summary
As of September 2nd, 2020, the number of people who have lost their lives in the U.S due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has reached 181; 129, whereas the number of cases has reached 5; 909; 266.1 Since COVID-19 spreads mainly through person-to-person contact (e.g., see Chan, Yuan, Kok, To, Chu, Yang, Xing, Liu, Yip, Poon, et al (2020)), di¤erent layers of government in the U.S reacted to this development by implementing travel restrictions, both internationally and domestically, which is similar to other countries or other time periods (e.g., see Bajardi, Poletto, Ramasco, Tizzoni, Colizza, and Vespignani (2011), Wang and Taylor (2016), Charu, Zeger, Gog, Bjørnstad, Kissler, Simonsen, Grenfell, and Viboud (2017) or Fang, Wang, and Yang (2020)) These restrictions do not cover the U.S in a nationwide way, since the federal government has left such policy decisions to local governments.. Descriptive statistics suggest that both COVID-19 cases and deaths are lower in counties where a higher share of people have stayed in the same county (or a fewer share of people have travelled across counties) during the previous 14 days
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