God is in the rain: The impact of rainfall-induced early social distancing on COVID-19 outbreaks

• DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2021.102575
• Publication Date: 2021-12-09T07:05:37Z
• Authors: Ajay Shenoy; Bhavyaa Sharma; Guanghong Xu; Rolly Kapoor; Haedong Aiden Rho; Kinpritma Sangha
• Keywords: Rainfall; 330; Social distancing; Economics; Rain; Policy and Administration; rainfall; Physical Distancing; coronavirus; Applied economics; Article; Disease Outbreaks; 0502 economics and business; Humans; Econometrics; SARS-CoV-2; Prevention; 05 social sciences; social distancing; 1. No poverty; COVID-19; Policy and administration; 3. Good health; Coronavirus; Human Society; Applied Economics; Communicable Disease Control; Public Health and Health Services; Health Policy & Services

We measure the benefit to society created by preventing COVID-19 deaths through a marginal increase in early social distancing. We exploit county-level rainfall on the last weekend before statewide lockdown in the early phase of the pandemic. After controlling for historical rainfall, temperature, and state fixed-effects, current rainfall is a plausibly exogenous instrument for social distancing. A one percent decrease in the population leaving home on the weekend before lockdown creates an average of 132 dollars of benefit per county resident within 2 weeks. The impacts of earlier distancing compound over time and mainly arise from lowering the risk of a major outbreak, yielding large but unevenly distributed social benefit.