Measuring the Social Net Benefits of COVID-19 Restrictions: The Case of Reduced Vehicle Use in a Pollution-Prone Region of Utah

Abstract

A number of natural experiments have recently found that COVID-19 restrictions imposed in nations worldwide are correlated with short-term reductions—in some cases dramatic reductions—in mobile-source air pollutants. Noticeably absent from these studies are estimates of the social net benefits associated with the changes in human behavior underlying the pandemic-induced effects. Using readily available data provided by the state of Utah and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Co-Benefits Risk Assessment Health Impacts Screening and Mapping Tool (COBRA), we find that daily social net benefit was positive during a pandemic-induced shutdown from March to April, 2020 in Utah’s Wasatch Front region solely when COBRA’s “high” health benefit estimate from combined reductions in PM 2.5 and NO x concentrations are weighed against the region’s “low” vehicle-trip cost estimate. All other scenarios correspond with negative net benefit estimates, i.e. , when high and low benefit estimates of reductions solely in PM 2.5 concentrations as well as for combined reductions in PM 2.5 and NO x concentrations are weighed against the region’s high vehicle-trip cost estimate. Generally speaking, social net benefits are higher for two of the Wasatch Front’s four counties.