Abstract
SummaryAs COVID-19 spreads worldwide, governments have been implementing a wide range of measures to contain it, from movement restrictions to economy-wide shutdowns. Understanding their impacts is essential to support better policies for countries still experiencing outbreaks or in case of emergence of subsequent pandemic waves. Here we show that the cumulative decline in electricity consumption within the 5 months following the stay-home orders ranges between 3% and 12% in the most affected EU countries and USA states, except Florida, which shows no significant impact. Italy, France, Spain, California, Austria, and New York have recovered baseline consumption by the end of July, whereas Great Britain and Germany remain below baseline levels. We also show that the relationship between measures stringency and daily decline in electricity consumption is nonlinear. These results illustrate the severity of the crisis across countries and can support further research on the effect of specific measures.
Highlights
From social distancing guidelines to strict lockdowns and paralyzation of non-essential economic activity, governments worldwide have taken a wide range of measures to halt the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic (Hale et al, 2020a)
SUMMARY As COVID-19 spreads worldwide, governments have been implementing a wide range of measures to contain it, from movement restrictions to economy-wide shutdowns
We show that the cumulative decline in electricity consumption within the 5 months following the stay-home orders ranges between 3% and 12% in the most affected EU countries and USA states, except Florida, which shows no significant impact
Summary
From social distancing guidelines to strict lockdowns and paralyzation of non-essential economic activity, governments worldwide have taken a wide range of measures to halt the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic (Hale et al, 2020a). 2020), and global GDP is expected to decline by 3% in 2020 as a result of the pandemic (IMF, 2020a). The strongest impact of the 2003 SARS coronavirus epidemic was in China and Hong Kong with GDP losses of 1.1% and 2.6%, respectively, and a global GDP decline of less than 0.1% (Lee and McKibbin, 2004). The unfolding outbreaks in other countries (World Health Organization, 2020) beyond the ones studied here and the potential emergence of subsequent pandemic waves (Kluge, 2020) reveal the urgency to improve our knowledge about the potential impacts of the containment measures
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