The short-term impacts of coronavirus quarantine in São Paulo: The health-economy trade-offs

Abstract

We analyze the trade-offs between health and the economy during the period of social distancing in São Paulo, the state hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. We use longitudinal data with municipal-level information and check the robustness of our estimates to several sources of bias, including spatial dependence, reverse causality, and time-variant omitted variables. We use exogenous climate shocks as instruments for social distancing since people are more likely to stay home in wetter and colder periods. Our findings suggest that the health benefits of social distancing differ by levels of municipal development and may have vanished if the COVID-19 spread was not controlled in neighboring municipalities. In turn, we did not find evidence that municipalities with tougher social distancing performed worse economically. Our results also highlight that estimates that do not account for endogeneity may largely underestimate the benefits of social distancing on reducing the spread of COVID-19.

Safety of the Fiocruz ChAdOx COVID-19 vaccine used in a mass vaccination campaign in Botucatu, Brazil

“…Brazil has been at the core of the COVID-19 pandemic, reporting the second highest death toll worldwide [1] . The autonomy of municipality and state governments has led to varying policies and degrees of implementation of non-pharmacological interventions (NPIs), including the use of masks and mobility restrictions across the country [2] , [3] , [4] . As these measures have had a varying impact [5] , interventions such as mass immunization can be an important tool to rapidly contain the spread of SARS-Cov-2 [6] .…”

Sistema de Monitoramento Inteligente da COVID-19 em SP

“…Em termos de retorno de investimento social, onde se analisa os benefícios frente aos investimentos, podemos considerar que os benefícios gerados pelo SIMI são intangíveis, ou de difícil mensuração, pois fazem parte de uma estratégia estadual que objetiva reduzir os impactos da pandemia tanto na perspectivas da economia quanto na preservação de vidas. De acordo com [3], existem indícios que cada redução percentual nos índices de isolamento social refletem em vidas salvas, após 15 dias. Ainda de acordo com [4], o Plano São Paulo, ao estimular a retomada econômica, ajudou a preservar cerca de 318 mil postos de trabalho.…”

Can the Content of Social Networks Explain Epidemic Outbreaks?

“…In order to minimize the undesirable costs of NPIs, policies are expected to have a well delimited spatial amplitude and a limited timing of implementation and duration. For example, studies indicate that regionally administered interventions, rather than isolated local actions, have the best results in containing the pandemic (Gori Maia et al, 2021 ). Timely implementation of mobility restrictions also proved to be more effective in reducing the peak of hospitalizations (Oraby et al, 2021 ).…”

“…The country was severely hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, with 21.4 million confirmed cases and 600,000 deaths by September 2021 (Ministério da Saúde, 2022 ). Due to the lack of political support, the Ministry of Health faced difficulties in implementing NPIs, such as social distancing (Gori Maia et al, 2021 ). The COVID-19 vaccination campaign started on January 17, 2021 only, when the country had already 210,000 deaths.…”