Vaccinations, lockdowns and testing strategies are three potential elements of an effective anti-coronavirus, and in particular Covid-19, health policy. The following analysis considers - within a simple model - the potentially crucial role of a Corona testing approach in combination with a...

Many papers have been written about people's loss of life satisfaction during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, but not much has been said about their resilience after the first shock had passed. Were people able to return, at least in part, to their original level of life...

This paper investigates the role of testing and age-composition in the Covid-19 epidemic. We augment a standard SIR epidemiological model with individual choices regarding how much time to spend working and consuming outside the house, both of which increase the risk of transmission. Individuals...

Special Co-Vid 19 responses have been targeted to the elderly (of whatever age cut-off a politician designates) on the basis that age, itself, constitutes and a unique vulnerability to the disease. This Essay challenges that assumption on the basis of newer epidemiological evidence which I...

This paper provides a critical review of models of the spread of the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) that have been influential in recent policy discussions. It notes potentially important features of the real- world environment that the standard models do not incorporate and discusses reasons why...

Pandemics harm the economy. Governments use social distancing and other non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) to tackle the pandemic. Recent data from the 1918 influenza pandemic ('Spanish Flu') suggest that a strict NPI policy on average not only reduces mortality but is also helpful to...

Typical government responses to pandemics involve social distancing measures designed to curb disease propagation. We evaluate the impact of state-mandated business closures in the context of the Covid-19 crisis in the US. Using state-level variations in the set of sectors forced to shut down,...

Do non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) aimed at reducing mortality during a pandemic necessarily have adverse economic effects? We use variation in the timing and intensity of NPIs across U.S. cities during the 1918 Flu Pandemic to examine their economic impact. While the pandemic itself was...

How states institutionalize pandemic preparedness following the COVID-19 pandemic will determine their ability to cope with the next public health crisis. States with major metropolitan areas should consider building independent, state-specific emergency medical stockpiles to lessen their...

Using county-level data on COVID-19 mortality and infections, along with county-level information on the adoption of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) in the United States, we examine how the speed of NPI adoption affected COVID-19 mortality. Our estimates suggest that advancing the date...