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The effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions on the demand for health care and on mortality: evidence from COVID-19 in Scandinavia
We study the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) against COVID-19 on the allocation of scarce resources in the hospital sector in Scandinavia. Denmark and Norway imposed strict NPIs, but Sweden followed an extraordinarily lenient approach. We use an event study to compare COVID-...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8316102/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34334957 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00148-021-00868-9 |
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author | Juranek, Steffen Zoutman, Floris T. |
author_facet | Juranek, Steffen Zoutman, Floris T. |
author_sort | Juranek, Steffen |
collection | PubMed |
description | We study the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) against COVID-19 on the allocation of scarce resources in the hospital sector in Scandinavia. Denmark and Norway imposed strict NPIs, but Sweden followed an extraordinarily lenient approach. We use an event study to compare COVID-19 hospitalizations, intensive-care (ICU) patients, and deaths in Sweden with Denmark and Norway. The outcome variables initially follow a common trend, but diverge 2–3 weeks after lockdown. Both the timing of the effect and the similarity in the trend between Denmark and Norway are highly consistent with a causal effect of the lockdown. We use our event study to build a counterfactual model that predicts the outcome variables for Denmark and Norway if they had followed Sweden’s approach. In the absence of strict NPIs, the peak number of hospitalizations would have been 2.5 (3.5) times as large in Denmark (Norway). Overall, Denmark (Norway) would have had 334 (671) percent more hospital-patient days, 277 (379) percent more ICU-patient days, and 402 (1015) percent more deaths. The benefit of lockdown in terms of healthcare and mortality costs amounts to between 1 and 4 (0.9 and 3.5) percent of GDP in Denmark (Norway). |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8316102 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Springer Berlin Heidelberg |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-83161022021-07-28 The effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions on the demand for health care and on mortality: evidence from COVID-19 in Scandinavia Juranek, Steffen Zoutman, Floris T. J Popul Econ Original Paper We study the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) against COVID-19 on the allocation of scarce resources in the hospital sector in Scandinavia. Denmark and Norway imposed strict NPIs, but Sweden followed an extraordinarily lenient approach. We use an event study to compare COVID-19 hospitalizations, intensive-care (ICU) patients, and deaths in Sweden with Denmark and Norway. The outcome variables initially follow a common trend, but diverge 2–3 weeks after lockdown. Both the timing of the effect and the similarity in the trend between Denmark and Norway are highly consistent with a causal effect of the lockdown. We use our event study to build a counterfactual model that predicts the outcome variables for Denmark and Norway if they had followed Sweden’s approach. In the absence of strict NPIs, the peak number of hospitalizations would have been 2.5 (3.5) times as large in Denmark (Norway). Overall, Denmark (Norway) would have had 334 (671) percent more hospital-patient days, 277 (379) percent more ICU-patient days, and 402 (1015) percent more deaths. The benefit of lockdown in terms of healthcare and mortality costs amounts to between 1 and 4 (0.9 and 3.5) percent of GDP in Denmark (Norway). Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2021-07-28 2021 /pmc/articles/PMC8316102/ /pubmed/34334957 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00148-021-00868-9 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Original Paper Juranek, Steffen Zoutman, Floris T. The effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions on the demand for health care and on mortality: evidence from COVID-19 in Scandinavia |
title | The effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions on the demand for health care and on mortality: evidence from COVID-19 in Scandinavia |
title_full | The effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions on the demand for health care and on mortality: evidence from COVID-19 in Scandinavia |
title_fullStr | The effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions on the demand for health care and on mortality: evidence from COVID-19 in Scandinavia |
title_full_unstemmed | The effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions on the demand for health care and on mortality: evidence from COVID-19 in Scandinavia |
title_short | The effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions on the demand for health care and on mortality: evidence from COVID-19 in Scandinavia |
title_sort | effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions on the demand for health care and on mortality: evidence from covid-19 in scandinavia |
topic | Original Paper |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8316102/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34334957 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00148-021-00868-9 |
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