The COVID-19 pandemic and associated economic crisis has rendered millions of U.S. households unable to pay rent, placing them at risk for eviction. Evictions may accelerate COVID-19 transmission by increasing household crowding and decreasing individuals’ ability to comply with social distancing directives. We leveraged variation in the expiration of eviction moratoriums in U.S. states to test for associations between evictions and COVID-19 incidence and mortality. Twenty-seven states lifted eviction moratoriums during the study period. Twenty-seven states lifted eviction moratoriums during the study period. Mortality in states that lifted their moratoriums was 1.6 (CI 1.2,2.3) times the mortality of states that maintained their moratoriums. These results translate to an estimated 433,700 excess cases (CI 365200,502200) and 10,700 excess deaths (CI 8900,12500) nationally.
— source bespacific.com | Dec 2, 2020