Fueling the Covid-19 pandemic: summer school holidays and incidence rates in German districts.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The Robert-Koch-Institute reports that during the summer holiday period a foreign country is stated as the most likely place of infection for an average of 27 and a maximum of 49% of new SARS-CoV-2 infections in Germany.

Methods

Cross-sectional study on observational data. In Germany, summer school holidays are coordinated between states and spread out over 13 weeks. Employing a dynamic model with district fixed effects, we analyze the association between these holidays and weekly incidence rates across 401 German districts.

Results

We find effects of the holiday period of around 45% of the average district incidence rates in Germany during their respective final week of holidays and the 2 weeks after holidays end. Western states tend to experience stronger

SUBMITTER: Plumper T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8083696 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature