Effects on Second Waves of COVID-19 Epidemics: Social Stringency, Economic Forces and Public Health

Abstract

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China in early 2020, countries around the world have spread the fire, from Asia to Europe, and then to the Americas. It has not yet subsided. During this period, the city has been closed, the country has been locked, and the city has been unblocked again. And all transnational business exchanges, tourism and sightseeing activities have almost stagnated, which has greatly affected and threatened the economic development and people’s health of various countries. The investigation period is from 2020/01/01 to 2021/10/07. Downloaded 121,947 daily data reported by each country from Our World in Data [OWID], EU CDC, and John Hopkins University, this study uses two-modal bell-shaped functions to classify the COVID-19 epidemic situation for each country and determine whether the second/third wave of epidemic has occurred. Moreover, through the measurement method to explore those factors that caused the second/third wave of epidemic to be postponed, or even not to occur. Empirical results show that countries with denser populations, poorer economic development, and lower stringency of government, longer life expectancy, and higher cardiovascular disease mortality rates, the second/third wave of epidemics came earlier. On the other hands, countries with the higher the GDP per capita, the higher the human development, the later of the second wave of epidemics.