A tenant speaks with a Maricopa County constable who arrived with an eviction order on October 7 in Phoenix, Arizona. The tenant was able to prove she had paid the rent, and the order was withdrawn. | John Moore/Getty Images

States’ decisions to lift their eviction moratoriums earlier this year could have led to more than 400,000 excess Covid-19 cases.

In March and April, the fear and urgency surrounding the spread of Covid-19 spurred policymakers in nearly every state to institute eviction moratoriums — prohibitions on kicking people out of their homes for not paying rent.

Over the following months, more than half of these states allowed the protections to expire. Now, a new study says states that let those protections lapse saw an estimated 433,700 excess individuals contract Covid-19, and 10,700 people die from the virus.

Kathryn Leifheit, a