Should Contact Bans Have Been Lifted More in Germany?

Jean Roch Donsimoni, René Glawion, Bodo Plachter, Klaus Wälde and Constantin Weiser

CESifo Economic Studies, 2020, vol. 66, issue 2, 115-133

Abstract: Many countries consider the lifting of restrictions of social contacts (RSC). We quantify the effects of RSC for Germany. We initially employ a purely statistical approach to predicting prevalence of Covid-19 if RSC had been upheld after 20 April. We employ these findings and feed them into our theoretical model. We find that the peak of the number of sick individuals would have been reached already end of April. The number of sick individuals would have fallen below 1000 at the beginning of July. If restrictions had been lifted completely on April 20, the number of sick should have risen quickly again from around 27 April. A balance between economic and individual costs of RSC and public health objectives consists in lifting RSC for activities that have high economic benefits but low health costs. In the absence of large-scale representative testing of CoV-2 infections, these activities can most easily be identified if federal states of Germany adopted exit strategies that differ across states.

Keywords: Covid-19; SARS-CoV-2; forecast Germany; epidemic; pandemic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C63 E17 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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