Is COVID-19 Herd Immunity Influenced by Population Densities of Cities?

Yuval Arbel (), Yifat Arbel, Amichai Kerner and Miryam Kerner
Additional contact information
Yuval Arbel: Sir Harry Solomon School of Economics and Management, Western Galilee College, Acre 2412101, Israel
Yifat Arbel: Department of Mathematics, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan 5290002, Israel
Amichai Kerner: School of Real Estate, Netanya Academic College, Netanya 4223587, Israel
Miryam Kerner: The Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 3525422, Israel

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 16, 1-11

Abstract: The objective of the current study is to compare between densely and sparsely populated cities in the context of herd immunity against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The sample refers to 46 (45) densely populated (sparsely populated) Israeli cities and towns, whose population density is below (above) the median of 2388 p e r s o n s s q . k m , covering above 64.3 % of the entire Israeli population. Findings suggest, on the one hand, a higher projected scope of morbidity per 10,000 persons in sparsely populated cities with zero prevalence of vaccination (37.79 vs. 17.61 cases per 10,000 persons). On the other hand, the outcomes propose a steeper drop in the scope of COVID-19 morbidity with higher vaccination rates in sparsely populated cities. Findings suggest that in terms of vaccination campaigns, below 60–70 percent vaccination rates, more efforts should be invested in sparsely populated cities. If, however, the 70 percent threshold is achieved, a further reduction in the scope of morbidity would require a higher (lower) rate of vaccination in densely populated (sparsely populated) cities.

Keywords: COVID-19; herd immunity; population density (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/16/10286/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/16/10286/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:16:p:10286-:d:891801

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().