Time-varying Cost of Distancing: Distancing Fatigue and Lockdowns

Christoph Carnehl, Satoshi Fukuda and Nenad Kos

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: We study a behavioral SIR model with time-varying costs of distancing. The two main causes of the variation in the cost of distancing we explore are distancing fatigue and public policies (lockdowns). We show that for a second wave of an epidemic to arise, a steep increase in distancing cost is necessary. Distancing fatigue cannot increase the distancing cost sufficiently fast to create a second wave. However, public policies that discontinuously affect the distancing cost can create a second wave. With that in mind, we characterize the largest change in the distancing cost (due to, for example, lifting a public policy) that will not cause a second wave. Finally, we provide a numerical analysis of public policies under distancing fatigue and show that a strict lockdown at the beginning of an epidemic (as, for example, recently in China) can lead to unintended adverse consequences. When the policy is lifted the disease spreads very fast due to the accumulated distancing fatigue of the individuals causing high prevalence levels.

Date: 2022-06, Revised 2023-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://arxiv.org/pdf/2206.03847 Latest version (application/pdf)

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:arx:papers:2206.03847

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Papers from arXiv.org
Bibliographic data for series maintained by arXiv administrators ().