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The impact of 2020 French municipal elections on the spread of COVID-19

Soon after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the French government decided to still hold the first round of the 2020 municipal elections as scheduled on March 15. What was the impact of these elections on the spread of COVID-19 in France? Answering this question leads to intricate econometric issu...

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Autores principales: Cassan, Guilhem, Sangnier, Marc
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8942813/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35345551
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00148-022-00887-0
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author Cassan, Guilhem
Sangnier, Marc
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Sangnier, Marc
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description Soon after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the French government decided to still hold the first round of the 2020 municipal elections as scheduled on March 15. What was the impact of these elections on the spread of COVID-19 in France? Answering this question leads to intricate econometric issues as omitted variables may drive both epidemiological dynamics and electoral turnout, and as a national lockdown was imposed at almost the same time as the elections. In order to disentangle the effect of the elections from that of confounding factors, we first predict each department’s epidemiological dynamics using information up to the election. We then take advantage of differences in electoral turnout across departments to identify the impact of the election on prediction errors in hospitalizations. We report a detrimental effect of the first round of the election on hospitalizations in locations that were already at relatively advanced stages of the epidemic. Estimates suggest that the elections accounted for at least 3,000 hospitalizations, or 11% of all hospitalizations by the end of March. Given the sizable health cost of holding elections during an epidemic, promoting ways of voting that reduce exposure to COVID-19 is key until the pandemic shows signs of abating.
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spelling pubmed-89428132022-03-24 The impact of 2020 French municipal elections on the spread of COVID-19 Cassan, Guilhem Sangnier, Marc J Popul Econ Original Paper Soon after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the French government decided to still hold the first round of the 2020 municipal elections as scheduled on March 15. What was the impact of these elections on the spread of COVID-19 in France? Answering this question leads to intricate econometric issues as omitted variables may drive both epidemiological dynamics and electoral turnout, and as a national lockdown was imposed at almost the same time as the elections. In order to disentangle the effect of the elections from that of confounding factors, we first predict each department’s epidemiological dynamics using information up to the election. We then take advantage of differences in electoral turnout across departments to identify the impact of the election on prediction errors in hospitalizations. We report a detrimental effect of the first round of the election on hospitalizations in locations that were already at relatively advanced stages of the epidemic. Estimates suggest that the elections accounted for at least 3,000 hospitalizations, or 11% of all hospitalizations by the end of March. Given the sizable health cost of holding elections during an epidemic, promoting ways of voting that reduce exposure to COVID-19 is key until the pandemic shows signs of abating. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2022-03-24 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC8942813/ /pubmed/35345551 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00148-022-00887-0 Text en © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2022 This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Cassan, Guilhem
Sangnier, Marc
The impact of 2020 French municipal elections on the spread of COVID-19
title The impact of 2020 French municipal elections on the spread of COVID-19
title_full The impact of 2020 French municipal elections on the spread of COVID-19
title_fullStr The impact of 2020 French municipal elections on the spread of COVID-19
title_full_unstemmed The impact of 2020 French municipal elections on the spread of COVID-19
title_short The impact of 2020 French municipal elections on the spread of COVID-19
title_sort impact of 2020 french municipal elections on the spread of covid-19
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8942813/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35345551
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00148-022-00887-0
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