Subjective burden of government-imposed Covid-19 restrictions in Switzerland: Evidence from the 2022 LINK Covid-19 survey

While a large literature has quantified the health and economic impact of COVID-19, estimates on the subjective losses in quality of life due to government imposed restrictions remain scarce. We conducted a nationally representative online survey in Switzerland in February 2022 to measure average se...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2023-07, Vol.18 (7), p.e0283524-e0283524
Main Authors: Fink, Günther, Förtsch, Katharina, Felder, Stefan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age groups
Biology and Life Sciences
Constrictions
COVID-19
COVID-19 - epidemiology
COVID-19 - prevention & control
Economic impact
Evaluation
Government
Humans
Impact analysis
Income distribution
Medical care, Cost of
Medicine and Health Sciences
Pandemics
People and Places
Polls & surveys
Population
Prohibition
Public health administration
Quality of Life
Research and Analysis Methods
Restrictions
School closures
Schools
Social Sciences
Surveys
Surveys and Questionnaires
Switzerland - epidemiology
Willingness to pay
Citations: Items that this one cites
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Summary:While a large literature has quantified the health and economic impact of COVID-19, estimates on the subjective losses in quality of life due to government imposed restrictions remain scarce. We conducted a nationally representative online survey in Switzerland in February 2022 to measure average self-reported quality of life with government restrictions. We used a discrete choice experiment to compute average willingness to pay for avoiding specific restrictions and time-trade-off questions to quantify the relative quality of life under restrictions. A total of 1299 Swiss residents completed the online survey between February 9th and 15th, 2022. On average, respondents valued life under severe restrictions at 39% of their usual life (estimated relative utility 0.39 [0.37, 0.42]). Willingness to pay for avoiding restrictions was lowest for masks (CHF 663 [319, 1007]), and highest for schools and daycares (CHF 4123 [3443, 4803]) as well as private parties (CHF 4520 [3811, 5229]). We estimate that between March 2020 and February 2022 a total of 5.7 Million QALYs were lost due to light, moderate and severe restrictions imposed by the governments. The quality of life losses due to government restrictions are substantial, particularly when it comes to the closure of schools and daycares, as well as the prohibition of private gatherings. Future policies should weigh these costs against the health benefits achievable with specific measures.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0283524