Relationship among state reopening policies, health outcomes and economic recovery through first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S.

ABSTRACT: State governments in the U.S. have been facing difficult decisions involving tradeoffs between economic and health-related outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite evidence of the effectiveness of government-mandated restrictions mitigating the spread of contagion, these orders are stigmatized due to undesirable economic consequences. This tradeoff resulted in state governments employing mandates at widely different ways. We compare the different policies states implemented during periods of restriction ("lockdown") and reopening with indicators of COVID-19 spread and consumer card spending at each state during the first "wave" of the pandemic in the U.S. between March and August 2020. We find that while some states enacted reopening decisions when the incidence rate of COVID-19 was

SUBMITTER: Ligo AK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8601438 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature