A model of private and public behavior to mitigate disease transmission during the COVID-19 pandemic over the past year in the United States addresses two questions: What dynamics of infections and deaths should we expect to see from a pandemic? What are our options for mitigating the impact of a pandemic on public health? I find that behavior turns what would be a short and extremely sharp epidemic into a long, drawn-out one, with, at best, a modest impact on the long-run death toll from the disease. Absent the development of a technological solution, such as vaccines or life-saving therapeutics, additional public health interventions suffer from rapidly diminishing returns in improving long-run outcomes. In contrast, rapidly implemented nonpharmaceutical interventions, in combination with the rapid development of technological solutions, could have saved nearly 300,000 lives relative to what is now projected as of mid-June 2021 to occur over the long run.

过去一年美国在 COVID-19 大流行期间减轻疾病传播的私人和公共行为模型解决了两个问题：我们应该从大流行中看到什么样的感染和死亡动态？我们有哪些选择来减轻流行病对公共卫生的影响？我发现这种行为会将一场短暂而极其剧烈的流行病变成一场漫长而持久的流行病，充其量只会对这种疾病的长期死亡人数产生适度的影响。如果没有开发出疫苗或挽救生命的疗法等技术解决方案，额外的公共卫生干预措施在改善长期结果方面的回报会迅速减少。相比之下，快速实施的非药物干预措施与技术解决方案的快速发展相结合，