How effective has the Spanish lockdown been to battle COVID-1 9? A spatial analysis of the coronavirus propagation across provinces

Resumen

This paper assesses the effectiveness of the Spanish lockdown of population on March 14th to battle the COVID-19 propagation, as well as the effect of bringing forward the date of this public intervention. We test not only whether the lockdown (and other control measures) has prevented local contagion of the virus, but also whether it has prevented the inter-province spread of COVID-19. We find a drastic reduction in the propagation of coronavirus across the Spanish provinces since March 14th, indicating that the lockdown has been quite effective in preventing the between-province spread of the coronavirus. Regarding the propagation of the virus within each province, we find a significant contraction in the rates of growth of coronavirus cases (5.8% on average) attributed to the lockdown. A first counterfactual exercise shows that the lockdown implemented on March 14 has reduced the number of potential COVID-19 cases by 79.5%. The largest reductions in coronavirus cases are found in provinces that are either close to the epicentres of the coronavirus or adjacent to provinces with more advanced epidemics. A second counterfactual exercise shows, however, that the number of coronavirus cases would have been reduced by an additional 12.8% i f the lockdown had been brought forward to March 7th, a reduction that likely would have prevented the collapse of many hospitals in Spain.