IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v52y2020i58p6292-6305.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effectiveness of social distancing in containing Covid-19

Author

Listed:
  • Imad A. Moosa

Abstract

A statistical measure of the containment of Covid-19 is proposed to describe seven possible outcomes ranging from the worst outcome of ‘beyond control’ and the best outcome of ‘under control with rapid progress towards zero infections’. This measure is used to examine the performance of 10 countries with emphasis on the role of government-imposed measures of social distancing (lockdown, etc.). The results show that social distancing is effective, even though it is difficult to separate the effect of government measures from that of social distancing triggered by personal initiatives. The experience of Sweden shows that social distancing as a personal initiative is inadequate for the purpose of containing the virus. The experience of Brazil shows that taking the virus lightly brings about serious consequences.

Suggested Citation

  • Imad A. Moosa, 2020. "The effectiveness of social distancing in containing Covid-19," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(58), pages 6292-6305, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:52:y:2020:i:58:p:6292-6305
    DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2020.1789061
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00036846.2020.1789061
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00036846.2020.1789061?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    RePEc Biblio mentions

    As found on the RePEc Biblio, the curated bibliography for Economics:
    1. > Economics of Welfare > Health Economics > Economics of Pandemics > Specific pandemics > Covid-19 > Health > Distancing and Lockdown > Effect on Health

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jagriti Srivastava & Aravind Sampath & Balagopal Gopalakrishnan, 2021. "Is CSR the key to unlocking debt financing during COVID-19? A multicountry perspective," Working papers 481, Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode.
    2. Srivastava, Jagriti & Gopalakrishnan, Balagopal, 2021. "In-kind financing during a pandemic: Trade credit and COVID-19," MPRA Paper 111433, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Dec 2021.
    3. Habibullah, Muzafar & Saari, Mohd Yusof & Haji Din, Badariah & Safuan, Sugiharso & Utit, Chakrin, 2021. "Labour Market Reactions to Lockdown Measures during the Covid-19 Pandemic in Malaysia: An Empirical Note," Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, vol. 55(1), pages 39-49.
    4. Bernard Yeboah-Asiamah Asare & Elizabeth Thomas & Jacquita S. Affandi & Myles Schammer & Paul Brown & Matthew Pilbeam & Chris Harris & Chris Ellison & Dominika Kwasnicka & Daniel Powell & Christopher , 2021. "Mental Well-Being during COVID-19: A Cross-Sectional Study of Fly-In Fly-Out Workers in the Mining Industry in Australia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(22), pages 1-14, November.
    5. Jagriti Srivastava & Balagopal Gopalakrishnan, 2021. "Work from home amenability and venture capital financing during COVID-19," Working papers 458, Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode.
    6. Yingtong Chen & Fei Wu & Dayong Zhang & Qiang Ji, 2024. "Tourism in pandemic: the role of digital travel vouchers in China," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-15, December.
    7. Prakash, Navendu & Srivastava, Bhavya & Singh, Shveta & Sharma, Seema & Jain, Sonali, 2022. "Effectiveness of social distancing interventions in containing COVID-19 incidence: International evidence using Kalman filter," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 44(C).
    8. Cristiano Maria Verrelli & Fabio Della Rossa, 2024. "Two-Age-Structured COVID-19 Epidemic Model: Estimation of Virulence Parameters through New Data Incorporation," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-13, March.
    9. Srivastava, Jagriti & Gopalakrishnan, Balagopal, 2021. "In-kind financing during a pandemic: Trade credit and COVID-19," MPRA Paper 108951, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Bong Gu Kang & Hee-Mun Park & Mi Jang & Kyung-Min Seo, 2021. "Hybrid Model-Based Simulation Analysis on the Effects of Social Distancing Policy of the COVID-19 Epidemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(21), pages 1-17, October.
    11. Priscilla Gomes da Silva & José Gonçalves & Andrés Torres Franco & Elisa Rodriguez & Israel Diaz & Antonio Orduña Domingo & Sonsoles Garcinuño Pérez & Gabriel Alberto March Roselló & Carlos Jesús Dueñ, 2023. "Environmental Dissemination of SARS-CoV-2 in a University Hospital during the COVID-19 5th Wave Delta Variant Peak in Castile-León, Spain," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(2), pages 1-11, January.
    12. Rajeev K. Goel & Michael A. Nelson, 2023. "Aggressive COVID‐19 lockdown policies: What factors significantly drove them across nations?," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(4), pages 2211-2222, June.
    13. Borja Gambau & Juan C. Palomino & Juan G. Rodríguez & Raquel Sebastian, 2022. "COVID-19 restrictions in the US: wage vulnerability by education, race and gender," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(25), pages 2900-2915, May.
    14. Lee, Kang-Bok & Han, Sumin & Jeong, Yeasung, 2020. "COVID-19, flattening the curve, and Benford’s law," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 559(C).
    15. Tung, Hans H. & Chang, Teng-Jen & Lin, Ming-Jen, 2022. "Political ideology predicts preventative behaviors and infections amid COVID-19 in democracies," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 308(C).
    16. Jagriti Srivastava & Balagopal Gopalakrishnan, 2021. "In-kind financing during a pandemic: Trade credit and COVID-19," Working papers 473, Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode.
    17. Srivastava, Jagriti & Sampath, Aravind & Gopalakrishnan, Balagopal, 2022. "Is ESG the key to unlock debt financing during the COVID-19 pandemic? International evidence," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    18. Hussein, Elham & Daoud, Sumaya & Alrabaiah, Hussam & Badawi, Rawand, 2020. "Exploring undergraduate students’ attitudes towards emergency online learning during COVID-19: A case from the UAE," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:52:y:2020:i:58:p:6292-6305. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEC20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.