The relative power of individual distancing efforts and public policies to curb the COVID-19 epidemics

Cécile Aubert and Emmanuelle Augeraud-Véron

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Abstract: Lockdown curbs the COVID-19 epidemics but at huge costs. Public debates question its impact compared to reliance on individual responsibility. We study how rationally chosen self-protective behavior impacts the spread of the epidemics and interacts with policies. We first assess the value of lockdown in terms of mortality compared to a counterfactual scenario that incorporates self-protection efforts; and second, assess how individual behavior modify the epidemic dynamics when public regulations change. We couple an SLIAR model, that includes asymptomatic transmission, with utility maximization: Individuals trade off economic and wellbeing costs from physical distancing with a lower infection risk. Physical distancing effort depends on risk aversion, perceptions of the epidemics and average distancing effort in the population. Rational distancing effort is computed as a Nash Equilibrium. Equilibrium effort differs markedly from constant, stochastic or proportional contacts reduction. It adjusts to daily incidence of hospitalization in a way that creates a slightly decreasing plateau in epidemic prevalence. Calibration on French data shows that a business-as-usual benchmark yields an overestimation of the number of deaths by a factor of 10 compared to benchmarks with equilibrium efforts. However, lockdown saves nearly twice as many lives as individual efforts alone. Public policies post-lockdown have a limited impact as they partly crowd out individual efforts. Communication that increases risk salience is more effective.

Keywords: Medical risk factors; COVID 19; Public Policy; Decision making; Epidemiology; Game theory; France; Health economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ore and nep-upt
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-03239997v1
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published in PLoS ONE, 2021, 16 (5), pp.e0250764. ⟨10.1371/journal.pone.0250764⟩

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Journal Article: The relative power of individual distancing efforts and public policies to curb the COVID-19 epidemics (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03239997

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0250764

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