Dynamic modeling of the impact of socio-economic restrictions and behavior on COVID-19 outbreak

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic had an enormous social and economic impact on societies in 2020. The epidemiological situation is evolving on a daily basis, and the methodology of how to evaluate the impact of the pandemic and the severity of its consequences is lacking. The only available high-frequency data now are the number of people who have contracted the illness, and the restrictive measures that authorities have implemented to contain the outbreak. The most important question now is whether authorities can prevent subsequent waves. The contribution of the paper is a dynamic model of COVID-19 outbreaks, on the basis of which we investigated the possible impact of the socio-economic behavior and restrictions on its waves. To build the model, a large database for different countries with a wide range of economic and social institutions was collected. We give a detailed description of the model and a comparison of the results with trajectories of the outbreaks in the countries under consideration. The proposed model describes the empirical results and can be used for timely and contemporary predictions of the stages of pandemics. Despite this, the model needs future development and verification because the pandemic is not over, and the accumulation of empirical information continues. Yet the model might also be useful as a basis for researching the impacts of other socio-economic and medical actions for containing pandemics.