New UK study backs up KY policy: Healthy at Home has saved 2,000 lives in state so far
A new study out of the University of Kentucky backs up Kentucky’s stay at home policy with dramatic numbers, estimating that without “Healthy at Home,” Kentucky would have had 10 times more COVID-19 cases and 2,000 more deaths as of April 25.
But what’s really interesting is that the study was authored by professors at the UK Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise, which is funded by the Koch Foundation and home to the same free market philosophy that advocates reopening the economy without delay.
“What we do is we look at data and follow it where it goes,” said Aaron Yelowitz, an economics professor who co-authored the study along with the Institute’s director Charles Courtemanche, UofL professor Joshua Pinkston, and graduate students Anh Le and Joseph Garuccio. “If the data told us something different, we would have written a different paper, but the data very clearly spoke to the fact that social distancing and the stay at home orders really do matter.”
As states, including Kentucky, figure out how to reopen after widespread quarantines, some people have said that quarantine measures don’t matter. “One can argue about the trade-offs of human life and unemployment, but to deny that is had health benefits is misplaced,” Yelowitz said. “To deny the health effects is a narrative that we’re trying to push back on.”
The study focuses on Kentucky compared to the Midwest and South census regions and uses data from the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering’s 2019 Novel Coronavirus COVID-19 Data Repository. The study looked at daily official case counts from each of the 2,477 counties in the South and Midwest starting on March 5, the day the U.S. reached 100 cases, and ends April 25.
The study performed a regression analysis, comparing the growth rate of COVID-19 cases to the timing of various policies implemented in different states. Most states staggered different policies. For example, Gov. Andy Beshear closed schools on March 16. By March 20, a ban on mass gatherings started and by March 26, Beshear closed most businesses and started “Healthy at Home,” Kentucky’s version of a shelter in place policy.
The study found that the stay at home policy was most effective, limiting the COVID-19 cases to 3,857. According to the study’s model, there would have been 44,482 cases without it. Using Kentucky’s fatality rate of 5 percent, this estimate implies that over 2,000 deaths were prevented. The fatality rate is based on official, confirmed cases. The actual number of infections is unknown due to mild or asymptomatic cases and testing limitations. This likely means the reported fatality rate is too high, but it also means the study’s estimate of cases averted is too low by the same proportion, so the estimated number of deaths prevented is unaffected, the authors said.
The second most effective preventive policy was closing bars, restaurants and gyms, the study concludes. Closing schools and banning large events was the least effective.
The study notes that older people are reaping more of the benefits of quarantine, while younger, healthier people in mostly low-wage professions are seeing more economic harm. That leads the authors to the following, somewhat surprising conclusion: “Economists often argue against comprehensive social safety net programs on the grounds that they discourage work, but this argument is irrelevant when the job losses are involuntary, unrelated to performance, and (hopefully) temporary. All levels of government should deliver economic aid with the same sense of urgency with which they adopted public health measures.”
This stance definitely goes against the free market party line and Yelowitz, who describes himself as “pretty conservative and free market,” finds he now disagrees with many of his professional and Facebook friends.
“We decided to write that because it’s what we believe: Basically, it is hard to tell people you cannot go and earn a livelihood and then at the same time not provide a safety net,” he said.
Charles Courtemanche, the Institute director, says that despite past controversy over donors, “the institute has always tried very hard to be non-partisan and to be careful to let the data lead us where it leads us,” he said. “In this study, we’re showing the social distancing measures worked the way they were intended. But they come with pretty dramatic economic costs.”
Beshear is getting a lot of pushback from around the state about reopening the economy. Doctors offices reopened this week, and he’s expected to release more details on what can open starting May 11. But he and public health officials are also trying to avoid what experts say could be a bump caused by abandoning quarantine too soon.
The UK study, while not yet peer-reviewed, is interesting precisely because it’s unpredictable; as Yelowitz said, in these politically divided times, hearing something unexpected from one side can lend it more credence.
“To the extent it surprises you that we would write a paper like this, well, it comes because we crunched the numbers and that’s what they said,” he said. “The evidence spoke for itself.”
This story was originally published April 29, 2020 at 12:26 PM.
