Do Lockdowns Bring about Additional Mortality Benefits or Costs? Evidence based on Death Records from 300 Million Chinese People

Qi, Jinlei; Zhang, Dandan; Zhang, Xiang; Yin, Peng; Liu, Jiangmei; Pan, Yuhang; Tanaka, Takanao; Xie, Peiyu; Wang, Zhaoguang; Liu, Shuocen; Gao, George F.; He, Guojun; Zhou, Maigeng

doi:10.1101/2020.08.28.20183699

Cited by 20 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Immediately after the COVID-19 outbreak (February to June 2020), however, we find a notable reduction in suicide rates (IRR: 0.86, 95% CI: 0.82 to 0.90). The finding might have been unexpected, yet is consistent with the emerging studies and statistics which find that suicide deaths decreased in Norway 30 , the UK 43 , Germany 27 and Peru 44 , and did not change in Greece 31 , Massachusetts (US) 25 , Victoria (Australia) 45 , and China (outside Wuhan) 46 (Suicide deaths in Nepal increased 29 ), when these countries were placed under strict lockdowns. Also, existing studies often report a drop followed by a delayed increase in suicide rates after national disasters, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005 or the 9/11 terrorist attack in 2001.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Suicide during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

Tanaka

Okamoto

2020

Preprint

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Background The crisis induced by the COVID-19 pandemic has affected every aspect of life. Fear and anxiety about the infections, social isolation derived from the virus-containment measures, and the resulting economic disruption could deteriorate psychological health and exacerbate the suicidal risk. However, evidence linking the COVID-19 pandemic to suicide is limited. Methods We use suicide records from July 2016 to June 2020 covering the entire Japanese population (126 million) in 1,861 administrative units. We used difference-in-differences estimation to assess if the suicide rate changed during the pandemic, comparing suicide rates between 2016-2019 (control group) and 2020 (treatment group). Findings We found that the overall suicide rate declined by 13.5% after the outbreak and subsequent measures (i.e., school closure and the state of emergency). While it is evident that suicide rate dropped across all gender and age groups, the decline is more substantial among males (-11.9%) than females (-6.7%) and among those aged 20-69 years (-12.6%) than those aged below 20 years (-1.6%) and those aged over 70 years (-4.8%). Interpretation The government's generous subsidies and benefits for both households and enterprises and reduced distress from overwork potentially account for the sizable decline in the suicide rate, particularly among male adults. A smaller drop in the suicide rate among the elderly and females suggests that they might be more vulnerable to this pandemic. Fewer school sessions among students might have reduced suicide among children and adolescents.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Suicide during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

Tanaka

Okamoto

2020

Preprint

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“…The percentage change from the baseline mean for the ILI-related mortality rate fell by 10% to 30% after COVID-19 outbreak. This result is consistent with the finding in recent literature on unintended health benefits of NPIs against COVID-19 (Qi et al, 2021; Feng et al, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

“…Third, this paper is related to the literature on health effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). Most of the recent research points out that such interventions can indeed effectively reduce COVID-19 transmission (Lin and Meissner, 2020; Chernozhukov et al, 2020; Mitze et al, 2020; Abouk and Heydari, 2020; Dave et al, 2020) and might lead to unintended health benefits (Qi et al, 2021; Feng et al, 2021). For example, Feng et al (2021) found that COVID-19 outbreaks and corresponding NPIs (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring Voluntary Responses in Healthcare Utilization During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Taiwan

Tsai

Tzu-Ting

2020

Preprint

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This paper examines the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on voluntary demand for Non-COVID-19 healthcare. We use 2014-2020 weekly county-level data from Taiwan National Health Insurance alongside a difference-in-differences design. Our results indicate that even if there are no government restrictions on human mobility, people spontaneously reduce their demand for healthcare due to fears of infection or improved health status. On average, the number of outpatient visits (inpatient admissions) decreased by 18% (9%) after COVID-19 outbreak. Furthermore, the demand response of healthcare for infectious diseases (e.g. flu) is much greater and more persistent than for other diseases, suggesting that the substantial decline in healthcare use is induced by positive public-health externality of prevention measures for COVID-19.

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“…It should also be noted that in the first quadrimester, some provinces in Italy experienced an improvement in life expectancy thanks to a reduction in mortality compared to the average of the previous years. There may have been spill-over benefits of the lockdown measures that contributed to a decline in premature deaths, such as from road traffic fatalities, alcohol consumption, violence and injuries at work (Qi et al, 2020;Qureshi et al, 2020). Moreover, our observation that the epidemic had a differential impact across different regions within Italy shows the importance of considering specific geographic areas when estimating the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on human life.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

Human costs of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the major epicentres in Italy

Ghislandi¹,

Muttarak²,

Sauerberg³

et al. 2021

Populationyearbook

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Deaths from COVID-19 can be miscounted due to under-reporting and inaccurate death registration. Mortality is often reported at the national level, which can result in the underestimation of the true scale of the impact of the pandemic since outbreaks tend to be localised. This study exploits all-cause daily death registration data provided by the Italian Statistical Office (ISTAT) from 1 January to 31 October to estimate the excess mortality and the corresponding changes in life expectancy during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Focusing on the five most severely hit provinces in Italy (Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona, Lodi and Piacenza), we calculate the excess mortality in 2020 compared to the average mortality of the years 2015 to 2019. Moreover, we estimate the excess mortality in the first quadrimester of 2020, and the annual life expectancy at birth. The estimated excess deaths show that during this period, mortality was significantly higher than the official mortality statistics for COVID-19. According to our estimates for the first quadrimester, life expectancy in the five provinces declined by 5.4 to 8.1 for men and by 4.1 to 5.8 years for women. In addition, we find that annual life expectancy decreased by 2.4 to 4.1 years for men and by 1.9 to 2.8 years for women compared to the 2015–2019 average. Thus, we conclude that the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic had a substantial impact on population health in the hardest hit areas in Italy.

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Do Lockdowns Bring about Additional Mortality Benefits or Costs? Evidence based on Death Records from 300 Million Chinese People

Cited by 20 publications

References 29 publications

Suicide during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

Suicide during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

Measuring Voluntary Responses in Healthcare Utilization During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Taiwan

Human costs of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the major epicentres in Italy

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