Flattening the curve in risk management of COVID-19: Do lockdowns work?
Abstract
© 2020 World Scientific Publishing Company. This paper presents a novel analysis of the global spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the COVID-19 disease using the R package "nCov2019", with an emphasis on the global spread and forecasts of the disease, and the rate of transmission in individual countries at two different points in time, namely, March and September 2020. This throws in sharp relief the relative effectiveness of the attempts to risk manage the spread of the virus by "flattening the curve"(aka planking the curve) of the speed of transmission, and the efficacy of lockdowns in terms of the spread of the disease and death rates. Simple cross-sectional regressions are able to predict quite well both the total number of cases and deaths, which cast doubt on the above measures. The algorithmic techniques, results and analysis presented in the paper should prove useful to the medical and health professions, science advisers and risk management and decision making of healthcare by state, regional and national governments in all countries.
RAS ID
36990
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
2021
School
School of Business and Law
Copyright
subscription content
Publisher
World Scientific
Comments
Allen, D. E., & Mcaleer, M. (2021). Flattening the curve in risk management of COVID-19: Do lockdowns work?. Annals of Financial Economics, 15(4), article 2050011. https://doi.org/10.1142/S2010495220500116