COVID-19
Pregnancies and contraceptive use in four African countries during the COVID-19 pandemic
Vienna Yearbook of Population Research
The COVID-19 pandemic and the public health measures adopted in response to it have triggered plenty of speculation about the potential impact on fertility in different regions of the globe. This study provides evidence on the fertility response in four sub-Saharan African countries during the first year of the pandemic. Using harmonized data on women of childbearing age from the Performance Monitoring for Action (PMA) data series, this study compares pregnancy rates at the turn of the year 2020/21 to a pre-pandemic baseline. There is no indication of a general increase in pregnancy rates after the beginning of the pandemic. In some of the sample countries, pregnancy rates during this phase of the COVID-19 pandemic instead fell significantly among the youngest and the least educated women of childbearing age, respectively. The findings also indicate that over this period, rates of modern contraceptive usage rose significantly among the surveyed female populations in several sample countries.
International travel in times of the COVID-19 pandemic: The case of German school breaks
Economics and Human Biology
The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered severe global restrictions on international travel with the intention of limiting the spread of SARS-CoV-2 across countries. This paper studies the causal effect of the partial relaxation of these travel restrictions in Europe on the COVID-19 incidence in Germany during the summer months of 2020. It exploits the staggered start of the summer school breaks across German states as an exogenous shock to the travel opportunities of the population. While the school breaks also increased mobility within Germany, the event-study type regressions precisely control for domestic mobility and local COVID-19-related restrictions. The intention-to-treat effects of the relaxed travel restrictions show a significant and sizable increase of the COVID-19 incidence in German counties during the later weeks of the school breaks. Part of the increase can be attributed to a mandatory testing regime for travel returnees from high-incidence areas.
Forecasting intensive care unit demand during the COVID-19 pandemic: A spatial age-structured microsimulation model
joint with Sebastian Klüsener et al.
Under Review
Available as preprint at medRxiv
We implement a spatial age-structured microsimulation model of the COVID-19 pandemic by extending the Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered (SEIR) framework. The model accounts for regional variation in population age structure and in spatial diffusion pathways. In a first step, we calibrate the model by applying a genetic optimization algorithm against hospital data on ICU patients with COVID-19. In a second step, we forecast COVID-19-related ICU demand under alternative scenarios of COVID 19 progression reflecting different levels of NPIs. We apply the model to Germany and provide state-level forecasts over a 2-month period, which can be updated daily based on latest data on the progression of the pandemic.
Common Pitfalls in the Interpretation of COVID-19 Data and Statistics
Intereconomics, Vol. 55, No. 3, 2020, 162-166.
Link to the full paper (open access), part of The European Response to the Coronavirus Crisis
Policymakers, experts and the general public heavily rely on the data that are being reported in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. Daily data releases on confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths provide information on the course of the pandemic. The same data are also essential for the estimation of indicators such as the reproduction rate and for the evaluation of policy interventions that seek to slow down the pandemic. Together with the proliferation of data, however, a number of pitfalls have arisen with regard to the interpretation of the data and the conclusions that can be drawn from them. The aim of this paper is to highlight the most common among these pitfalls given that they have the potential to intentionally or unintentionally mislead the public debate and thereby the course of future policy actions.