Transportation Infrastructure,Major Public Health Emergencies And Economic Impact

In 2020,the Covid-19 epidemic swept the world.While other countries are still shrouded in the haze of the virus,China has successfully controlled the epidemic in a short period of time through a series of timely and efficient precision prevention and control policies.In view of the current status of the interconnection of Chinese transportation infrastructure,when facing this major public health emergency,Wuhan suspended public transportation services on January 23,2020,interrupting the dense high-speed rail connection with other cities.By reducing population movement between cities to achieve the effect of curbing the spread of the epidemic.On April 8,the lifting of this measure quickly restored the passenger and logistics flow between cities with high-speed rail as the carrier,and the economic network between Wuhan and other cities flowed again.Therefore,this article focuses on two aspects.One is the extent to which the interruption of transportation infrastructure connections has restrained the spread of the epidemic,and the other is how the restoration of this connection has promoted the resumption of production and economic recovery in China after the epidemic.These discussions are not only effective standards for assessing the correctness of the measures,but also provide certain assistance for the exchange of multilateral anti-epidemic experience and the economic recovery of the international community after the epidemic.This thesis combs the spread of epidemic diseases,especially the study of public health incidents,and outlines the impact of high-speed rail and other transportation infrastructure on economic activities,and constructed a research framework based on the gravity model of infectious diseases.This thesis takes the Covid-19 as an example of a major public health emergency,in connection with the reality of temporary traffic control measures,selects high-speed rail frequency data and a series of covariates in295 cities across the country,and uses regression discontinuity twice to conduct empirical study of the impact of infrastructure on curbing the spread of the epidemic to other cities and promoting economic recovery.The study found that in terms of the implementation of temporary traffic control measures,Wuhan has effectively stopped the spread of the virus in a timely and effective manner by suspending public transportation services.The estimation results show that when the virus incubation period is assumed to be three days and the influence of covariates is considered,the implementation of this measure has reduced the number of new cases per day in the sample cities by 5.32%.If the average incubation period of the virus is extended to seven days,the inhibitory effect will be more obvious,reaching 8.23%.Regarding the lifting of temporary traffic control measures,this article also found that the restoration of public transportation services has significantly promoted the consumption enthusiasm of the sample cities and played a role in boosting economic recovery.When using monthly data and considering the impact of covariates,the restoration of transportation services increased the total retail sales of consumer goods in the sample cities by 5.81%.If we consider quarterly data,the promotion effect is even more obvious,reaching 22.38%.The results of the above two aspects maintain a high degree of consistency in the second-order polynomial regression and robustness tests.Based on the above research results,this article puts forward corresponding countermeasures and suggestions.Firstly,in countries and regions with developed public transportation services and densely populated areas,additional attention should be paid to epidemic prevention measures in transportation.Secondly,when evaluating the effectiveness of epidemic prevention measures,attention should be paid to the lag caused by the incubation period.Thirdly,when formulating relevant prevention and control measures,both overall and precise prevention and control must be taken into account.Fourthly,do not restore public transportation services prematurely when the epidemic is not under control.