all cases. The virus is thought to have been brought into the country by an individual entering from Guinea around May 2014. By October 2014, it had spread to all 14 districts in the country, with rapid contagion being caused by high rates of geographic mobility and the use of traditional burial practices. Figure 1 charts the timeline of the epidemic from May 2014, showing the number of weekly cases (confirmed and probable). The peak flow of weekly cases occurred in December 2014, but it was only in July 2015 that the epidemic started to slow down. Sierra Leone was declared Ebola free in November 2016, 42 days after the last patient was discharged. The WHO estimates there were 14 _,_ 124 cases in the country (including suspected, probable and confirmed cases), resulting in 3956 deaths. Hence the 28% fatality rate is lower than in other outbreaks, but the scale and spread of the outbreak in Sierra Leone was unprecedented.<sup>11</sup>

# **2.2 Policy Responses**

The government of Sierra Leone implemented three core policies to combat rapid contagion: (i) village lock-downs and travel bans, severely curtailing economic activity; (ii) all primary and secondary schools were closed through the 2014-15 academic year; (iii) health workers were mobilized to record door-to-door cases and track contagion, and some health facilities were transformed into Ebola holding centers. The lower part of Figure 1 shows the timeline of polices enacted.<sup>12</sup> In a year, GDP growth plummeted from 8 _._ 9% to _−_ 2 _._ 0%: border closures shut down international trade (predominantly in agriculture), internal travel bans resulted in the breakdown of domestic trade, and all periodic markets were forced to close. The self-employment sector, which accounts for 91% of the labor force, shed around 170 _,_ 000 jobs (with revenues for surviving enterprises falling 40%), and a further 9 _,_ 000 jobs were lost in wage employment [Thomas _et al._ 2014, 2015, Evans _et al._ 2015, Himelein _et al._ 2015, Casey _et al._ 2016]. Food security became an issue by December 2014. In terms of food price impacts, the best data comes from a series of tracker surveys conducted at 200 markets during the crisis [Glennerster _et al._ 2016]. They document relatively modest food price increases (e.g. for rice), but more pronounced impacts on price dispersion, with increases and decreases back to normalcy during the crisis. This is as expected given transportation restrictions but also offsetting government efforts to distribute rice.

The second key policy response related to the education system. Schools were closed in May 2014 and re-opened in April 2015 as the epidemic began to slow down (the school year runs from

> 11For the 2014-16 outbreak, the WHO estimates Liberia had 10675 cases and 4809 deaths (a 45% fatality rate), and Guinea had 3811 cases with 2543 deaths (a 67% fatality rate). WHO case data exists by district, but not any finer geography: this prevents us examining responses across villages impacted by the crisis at different times.

> 12As Adda [2016] notes, closing transportation networks or introducing quarantines is a common policy response dating back to plague epidemics in Europe and Asia during the Middle Ages. School closures are an equally common policy response to viral outbreaks, having been used in Japan, Bulgaria, China, UK and the US.

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