Did behavioral changes reduce COVID-19 deaths?

As the COVID-19 swept across the globe, many nations, including the U.S., struggled to define a cohesive public health strategy to prevent the spread of the disease. However, in spite of the lack of a clear plan, improvised strategies of behavioral changes-e.g., masking, social distancing-slowed transmission until a vaccine could be developed. The new BPEA paper, “The impact of vaccines and behaviors on U.S. cumulative deaths from COVID-19,” estimates that the ad hoc strategy prevented close to 800,000 deaths. On this episode of the Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity, paper co-author Stephen Kissler, an epidemiologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, talks with Brookings Senior Fellow Carol Graham about the model they used to study COVID-19's impacts and what can be done to improve the government response to future pandemics.
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