Journal Article

Impacts of COVID-19: Mitigation Efforts versus Herd Immunity

Abstract: The rapid spread of COVID-19 is having devastating effects on the global economy. Governments around the world have been forced to pursue lockdown policies in an attempt to stem the spread of this deadly disease and bend the death curve. With death curves beginning to bend, governments will soon need to determine when and how to relax lockdown measures. The crucial question is: what are the consequences of reopening the economy? In this article, we address this question by studying both the model and the data and discuss the challenges we face moving forward.

Keywords: COVID-19; social distancing; identification problem; death curve; lockdown; herd immunity; reopening the economy; testing;

JEL Classification: I1; E6; H12;

https://doi.org/10.29338/ph2020-03

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

Part of Series: Policy Hub

Publication Date: 2020-04-17

Volume: 2020

Issue: 3

Pages: 13