A Note on Long-Run Persistence of Public Health Outcomes in Pandemics / Peter Zhixian Lin, Christopher M. Meissner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lin, Peter Zhixian.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Meissner, Christopher M.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w27119.

NBER working paper series no. w27119

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2020.

Summary:

Covid-19 is the single largest threat to global public health since the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918-20. Was the world better prepared in 2020 than it was in 1918? After a century of public health and basic science research, pandemic response and mortality outcomes should be better than in 1918-20. We ask whether mortality from historical pandemics has any predictive content for mortality in the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. We find a strong persistence in public health performance in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. Places that performed poorly in terms of mortality in 1918 were more likely to have higher mortality today. This is true across countries and across a sample of US cities. Experience with SARS is associated with lower mortality today. Distrust of expert advice, lack of cooperation at many levels, over-confidence, and health care supply shortages have likely promoted higher mortality today as in the past.

Notes:

Print version record

May 2020.