Lag time between state-level policy interventions and change points in COVID-19 outcomes in the United States

Dey, Tanujit; Lee, Jaechoul; Chakraborty, Sounak; Chandra, Jay; Bhaskar, Anushka; Zhang, Kenneth; Bhaskar, Anchal; Dominici, Francesca

State-level policy interventions have been critical in managing the spread of the new coronavirus. Here, we study the lag time between policy interventions and change in COVID-19 outcome trajectory in the United States. We develop a stepwise drifts random walk model to account for non-stationarity and strong temporal correlation and subsequently apply a change-point detection algorithm to estimate the number and times of change points in the COVID-19 outcome data. Furthermore, we harmonize data on the estimated change points with non-pharmaceutical interventions adopted by each state of the United States, which provides us insights regarding the lag time between the enactment of a policy and its effect on COVID-19 outcomes. We present the estimated change points for each state and the District of Columbia and find five different emerging trajectory patterns. We also provide insight into the lag time between the enactment of a policy and its effect on COVID-19 outcomes.