Should Contact Bans Be Lifted in Germany? A Quantitative Prediction of Its Effects

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

No 8242, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

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 were upheld after April 20. We employ these findings and feed them into our theoretical model. We find that the peak of the number of sick individuals would be reached already mid April. The number of sick individuals would fall below 1,000 at the beginning of July. When restrictions are lifted completely on April 20, the number of sick should rise quickly again from around April 27. 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
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gen and nep-ore
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Working Paper: Should Contact Bans Be Lifted in Germany? A Quantitative Prediction of Its Effects (2020)
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