Abstract
BackgroundThe Robert-Koch-Institute reports that during the summer holiday period a foreign country is stated as the most likely place of infection for an average of 27 and a maximum of 49% of new SARS-CoV-2 infections in Germany.MethodsCross-sectional study on observational data. In Germany, summer school holidays are coordinated between states and spread out over 13 weeks. Employing a dynamic model with district fixed effects, we analyze the association between these holidays and weekly incidence rates across 401 German districts.ResultsWe find effects of the holiday period of around 45% of the average district incidence rates in Germany during their respective final week of holidays and the 2 weeks after holidays end. Western states tend to experience stronger effects than Eastern states. We also find statistically significant interaction effects of school holidays with per capita taxable income and the share of foreign residents in a district’s population.ConclusionsOur results suggest that changed behavior during the holiday season accelerated the pandemic and made it considerably more difficult for public health authorities to contain the spread of the virus by means of contact tracing. Germany’s public health authorities did not prepare adequately for this acceleration.
Highlights
Holiday travels can be expected to accelerate the SARS-CoV2 pandemic
Our results suggest that changed behavior during the holiday season accelerated the pandemic and made it considerably more dif cult for public health authorities to contain the spread of the virus by means of contact tracing
We find that the summer school holiday weeks are on average predicted to increase incidence rates by 1.71 cases per 100 000 people relative to the period before holidays, consistent with our first hypothesis
Summary
Holiday travels can be expected to accelerate the SARS-CoV2 pandemic. To a small extent, this is because traveling via bus, train or plane adds to the risk of becoming infected.[1,2] More importantly, infections rise because individuals change their social behavior during holidays.[3]. The Robert-Koch-Institute (RKI) reports that over Germany’s entire summer school holiday period in ∼27% of weekly cases reported to the Institute a foreign country was mentioned as the most likely place of infection.[6] This figure reached its maximum at 49% of weekly cases in week 34, which is in mid-August It is, not possible to interpret these numbers as the e ect of holiday-related travel since some of the infections may not have occurred abroad despite ‘abroad’ being mentioned as the likely place of infection, not all international travel is necessarily holidayrelated even if it takes place during the holiday season and not all holiday-makers spend their holidays abroad. Koch-Institute reports that during the summer holiday period a foreign country is stated as the most likely place of infection for an average of 27 and a maximum of 49% of new SARS-CoV-2 infections in Germany
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