To lockdown or not against COVID19: Can the power of education provide the answer?()

Global education is a well-known positive externality associated with children-parents knowledge spillover. More education may also lead to increased communication among family members regarding health knowledge and skills acquired at or after school, positively affecting health behavior. One important aspect that should be considered by policy makers is the potential promotion of social behavior adapted to the COVID2019 pandemic via the education system. The current study attempts to investigate the relationships between infection and recovery rates from coronavirus and the educational achievement of the population at the US statewide level. Based on the ranking of US States (including US sponsored areas) according to the percent of the population that completed high school and above from the top (93%) to the bottom (68.9%), findings suggest that as the level of educational achievement drops, projected infection rates rise and projected recovery rates drop. Research findings demonstrate the importance of educational achievement in addressing the coronavirus pandemic. Specifically, avoiding closings and opening the school systems under the appropriate limitations may have the long-run effect of children-parents knowledge spillover regarding the COVID19 pandemic. This, in turn, might promote public re-education and spread the adoption of desirable social behavior under conditions of COVID19 pandemic, such as, social distancing and wearing masks.