Behavior and the Transmission of COVID-19

A simple model of COVID-19 that incorporates feedback from disease prevalence to disease transmission through an endogenous response of human behavior does a remarkable job fitting the main features of the data on the growth rates of daily deaths observed across a large number of countries and states in the United States in 2020. This finding, however, suggests a new empirical puzzle: very large wedges that shift disease transmission rates holding disease prevalence fixed are required both across regions and within a region over time for the model to match the data on deaths from COVID-19 as an equilibrium outcome exactly.