COVID-19 spread and inter-county travel: Daily evidence from the U.S.

Hakan Yilmazkuday

2020Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives51 citationsDOI Open Access PDF

Abstract

Daily data at the U.S. county level suggest that coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases and deaths are lower in counties where a higher share of people have stayed in the same county (or travelled less to other counties). This observation is tested formally by using a difference-in-difference design controlling for county-fixed effects and time-fixed effects, where weekly changes in COVID-19 cases or deaths are regressed on weekly changes in the share of people who have stayed in the same county during the previous 14 days. A counterfactual analysis based on the formal estimation results suggests that staying in the same county has the potential of reducing total weekly COVID-19 cases and deaths in the U.S. as much as by 139,503 and by 23,445, respectively.

Topics & Concepts

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)Counterfactual thinkingDemography2019-20 coronavirus outbreakSevere acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)EstimationGeographySignificant differenceFixed effects modelMedicineGerontologyStatisticsPsychologyOutbreakDiseaseMathematicsPanel dataEconomicsInfectious disease (medical specialty)VirologySociologyInternal medicineSocial psychologyManagementCOVID-19 epidemiological studiesCOVID-19 Pandemic ImpactsVaccine Coverage and Hesitancy