Abstracts
Abstract
From September 2020 onwards, COVID-19 cases have rapidly increased across Canada. This study estimates the effects of Google population mobility indicators on daily COVID-19 cases to evaluate the impacts of public movements across different regions in Ontario. We focus on Ontario as Google mobility data are available for Public Health Units (PHUs) for that province. Results based on pooled data from May 1st – November 15th imply that higher mobility at retail stores is significantly correlated with an increase in daily COVID-19 cases. However, empirical estimates from individual PHU level time-series models reveal regional differences, as these findings are based primarily on the relationship between retail mobility and daily cases for the Public Health Units (PHUs) of Toronto and Peel. These results support the implementation of region-specific lockdowns. Further, different specifications generate daily COVID-19 forecasts for Peel and Toronto that are on average, approximately 6%-9% different from actual values. The models of this research should be of value to local health authorities who are in search of simple models that are not computationally intensive and are capable of generating reliable forecasts for specific regions.
Keywords:
- COVID-19,
- Population Mobility,
- Google Data,
- Econometric Models,
- Ontario,
- Public Health Units
Appendices
Bibliography
- Altieri, N., Barter, R.L., Duncan, J., Dwivedi, R., Kumbier, K., Li, X., Netzorg, R., Park, B., Singh, C., Tan, Y.S., Tang, T., Wang, Y., Zhang, C. & Bin, Y. (2021). Curating a COVID-19 Data Repository and Forecasting County-Level Death Counts in the United States. Harvard Data Science Review. https://doi.org/10.1162/99608f92.1d4e0dae
- Armstrong II, D., Lebo, M.J. & Lucas, J. (2020). Do COVID-19 Policies Affect Mobility Behaviour? Evidence from 75 Canadian and American Cities. Canadian Public Policy 46(S2): S127-S144. https://doi.org/10.3138/cpp.2020-062.
- Barrios, J.M., Benmelech, E., Hochberg, Y.V., Sapienza, P. & Zingales, L. (2020). Civic Capital and Social Distancing During the Covid-19 Pandemic. Journal of Public Economics 193, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104310.
- Chan, J. (2020a). The Geography of Social Distancing in Canada: Evidence from Facebook. Canadian Public Policy 46(S1): S19-S28.
- Chan, J. (2020b). Using Google Data to Understand Canadian Movement Reductions During the COVID-19 Pandemic (May 12, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3599227 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3599227
- Flanagan, R. (2020). Canada Has Twice as Many Active COVID-19 Cases as it Did on Nov. 1. Available at https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/canada-has-twice-as-many-active-covid-19-cases-as-it-did-on-nov-1-1.5209320, last accessed on January 15th 2021.
- Glaeser, E.L., Gorback, C. & Redding, S.J. (2020). How Much Does COVID-19 Increase with Mobility? Evidence from New York and Four other U.S. cities. Forthcoming, Journal of Urban Economics.
- Goolsbee, A. & Syverson, C. (2020). Fear, Lockdown, and Diversion: Comparing Drivers of Pandemic Economic Decline 2020. Journal of Public Economics, 193
- Karaivanov, A., Shih E.L., Hitoshi, S., Chen, C. & Pamplona, S. (2021). Face Masks, Public Policies and Slowing the Spread of COVID-19: Evidence from Canada. Journal of Health Economics 78: 102475.
- Liu, L.M., Hyungsik R. & Schorfheide, F. (2020). Panel Forecasts of Country-Level COVID-19 Infections., Journal of Econometrics, Available at https://laurayuliu.com/covid19-panel-forecast/ and forthcoming
- Mavragani, A. & Gkillas, K. (2020). COVID-19 Predictability in the United States using Google Trends Time Series. Scientific Reports 10: 20693. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-77275-9
- Ogden, N.H., Fazil, A., Arino, J., Berthiaume, P., Fisman, D.N., Greer, A.L., Ludwig, A., Ng, Victoria, T., Ashleigh R., Turgeon, P., Waddell, L.A. & Wu, J. (2020). Modelling Scenarios of the Epidemic of COVID-19 in Canada. Artificial Intelligence in Public Health, 46–6.
- Tuite, A.R., Fisman D.N. & Greer, A.L. (2020). Mathematical Modelling of COVID-19 Transmission and Mitigation Strategies in the Population of Ontario, Canada. Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ), 192 (19): E497-E505; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.200476