Estimating COVID-19 lockdown effectiveness: Analysis of the 2020 Danish mink lockdown (preprint)

ABSTRACT

In late 2020 Denmark became the focus of the global efforts against the Covid-19 pandemic when reports of a mutated SARS-CoV-2 virus variant in the countries population of 17 million farmed mink appeared. Spillover infections between mink and humans were feared to threaten the efficacy of upcoming vaccines. In this study the ensuing short-lived yet stringent lockdowns imposed in 7 of the countries 98 municipalities are analysed for their effectiveness to reduce SARS-CoV-2 infections. Synthetic counterfactuals are created for each of these municipalities using a weighted average combination of the the 91 municipalities not targeted by the stringent measures. This allows for a clear overview regarding the development of test-positivity rates, citizen mobility behaviours and lastly daily infection numbers in response to the restrictions. The findings show that these targeted, short-term lockdowns significantly curtailed further infections, demonstrating a marked decrease, first in citizens mobility and then in daily cases when compared to their synthetic counterfactuals. Overall, the estimates indicate average reductions to infection numbers to be around 31\%. This study underscores the potential of strict, yet severe lockdowns in breaking ongoing infection dynamics, by utilising a rare quasi-experimental design case that avoids endogeneity through treatment selection.