We investigate the regional distribution of the COVID-19 outbreak in Germany. We use a novel digital mobility dataset, that traces the undertaken trips on Easter Sunday 2020 and instrument them with regional accessibility as measured by the regional road infrastructure of Germany’s 401 NUTS III regions. We identify a robust negative association between the number of infected cases per capita and average travel time on roads to the next major urban center. What has been a hinderance for economic performance in good economic times, appears to be a benevolent factor in the COVID-19 pandemic: bad road infrastructure. Using road infrastructure as an instrument for mobility reductions we assess the causal effect of mobility reductions on infections. The study shows that keeping mobility of people low is a main factor to reduce infections. Aggregating over all regions, our results suggest that there would have been about 55,600 infections less on May 5th, 2020, if mobility at the onset of the disease were 10 percent lower.

中文翻译：

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偏远地区的好处——数字移动数据、区域道路基础设施和 COVID-19 感染

我们调查了德国 COVID-19 疫情的区域分布。我们使用了一个新的数字移动数据集，该数据集追踪了 2020 年复活节星期天进行的旅行，并根据德国 401 个 NUTS III 地区的区域道路基础设施衡量其区域可达性。我们发现人均感染病例数与通往下一个主要城市中心的道路上的平均旅行时间之间存在强烈的负相关关系。在经济繁荣时期阻碍经济表现的因素似乎是 COVID-19 大流行的一个善意因素：糟糕的道路基础设施。使用道路基础设施作为减少流动性的工具，我们评估了流动性减少对感染的因果影响。研究表明，保持人员流动性低是减少感染的主要因素。