The Impact of Stay-At-Home Mandates on Uncertainty and Sentiments: Quasi-Experimental Study.

Background: As the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus coincided with lockdown measures, it is challenging to distinguish public reactions to lockdowns from responses to COVID-19 itself. Beyond the direct impact on health, lockdowns may have worsened public sentiment toward politics and the economy or even heightened dissatisfaction with health care, imposing a significant cost on both the public and policy makers.

Objective: This study aims to analyze the causal effect of COVID-19 lockdown policies on various dimensions of sentiment and uncertainty, using the Italian lockdown of February 2020 as a quasi-experiment.