Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/216773 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
GLO Discussion Paper No. 534
Publisher: 
Global Labor Organization (GLO), Essen
Abstract: 
Feedback control-based mitigation strategies for COVID-19 are threatened by the time span occurring before an infection is detected in official data. Such a delay also depends on behavioral, technological and procedural issues other than the incubation period. We provide a machine learning procedure to identify structural breaks in detected positive cases dynamics using territorial level panel data. In our case study, Italy, three structural breaks are found and they can be related to the three different national level restrictive measures: the school closure, the main lockdown and the shutdown of non-essential economic activities. This allows assessing the detection delays and their relevant variability among the different measures adopted and the relative effectiveness of each of them. Accordingly we draw some policy suggestions to support feedback control based mitigation policies as to decrease their risk of failure, including the further role that wide swap campaigns may play in reducing the detection delay. Finally, by exploiting the huge heterogeneity among Italian provinces features, we stress some drawbacks of the restrictive measures specific features and of their sequence of adoption, among which, the side effects of the main lockdown on social and economic inequalities.
Subjects: 
Covid-19
coronavirus
lockdown
feedback control
mitigation strategies
JEL: 
C63
I14
I18
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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