The sooner the better: lives saved by the lockdown during the COVID-19 outbreak. The case of Italy

Abstract

This paper estimates the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions – mainly, the lockdown – on the COVID-19 mortality rate for the case of Italy, the first Western country to impose a national shelter-in-place order. We use a new estimator, the Augmented Synthetic Control Method (ASCM), that overcomes some limits of the standard Synthetic Control Method (SCM). The results are twofold. From a methodological point of view, the ASCM outperforms the SCM in that the latter cannot select a valid donor set, assigning all the weights to only one country (Spain) while placing zero weights to all the remaining. From an empirical point of view, we find strong evidence of the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions in avoiding losses of human lives in Italy: conservative estimates indicate that the policy saved in total more than 21,000 human lives.

The cost of waiting and the death toll in Italy during the first wave of the covid-19 pandemic

“…In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the imposition of a shelter-in-place (SIPO) order has been proven to be effective in fighting the virus reproduction rate in the short run [ [1] , [2] , [3] ] despite the cost of hampering the level of economic activity and, eventually, the social environment if such a restriction is put into force for a too prolonged period [ 4 ]. When coping with this trade-off, countries have implemented restrictive policy measures that differed remarkably in timing and intensity.…”

The matching effect in persuasive communication about lockdown

“…People’s mobility was allowed only for a strict list of necessities (e.g., professions impossible to be performed online, health emergencies, grocery shopping) and upon presentation of certifying documents, while persons infected with the virus were confined at home or treated in dedicated hospital ward, depending on their conditions. However, despite the effectiveness of lockdown in saving human lives ( Ferguson et al, 2020 ; Prem et al, 2020 ; Cerqueti et al, 2022 ), this non-pharmaceutical measure had great costs for citizens in terms of isolation and economic losses ( The Economist, 2020 ). Therefore, to guarantee a successful implementation of the lockdown, it was fundamental to obtain people’s compliance by effectively communicating with them.…”

Experts vs. policymakers in the COVID-19 policy response

“…Many studies analyze the policy response to the outbreak. Early NPIs save lives ( Fang, Wang, Yang, 2020 , Sang-Wook, 2020 , Cerqueti, Coppier, Girardi, Ventura, 2021 ), but bring severe economic losses in the short run ( Coibion et al., 2020 ) and a potential electoral punishment for the incumbent ( Aksoy, Eichengreen, Saka , Fazio, Reggiani, Sabatini ). Weak, irresolute reactions to the pandemic, on the other hand, cost lives and bring about uncertain economic outcomes ( Amuedo-Dorantes et al., 2021 ).…”