Comments by Riatu Mariatul Qibtniyyah,  on  Change from the COVID-19 Pandemic to a New Normal: Documenting Consumption Behavior of  Two Years with Big Data

Riatu Mariatul Qibtniyyah: This paper reviews the weekly consumption profile in Japan during the last two years of the COVID-19 pandemic from January 2020 to December 2021 in comparison to the same week of the pre-pandemic year 2019. The authors provide extensive insight that during the pandemic there are different patterns of consumption and types of goods and services consumed due to observed change in habit and lifestyle, namely, on the prevention of COVID-19 infection, on working and studying at home, on eating habits, on use of leisure time, and within the context of staying at home more often. The authors suggest that this paper's findings and their approach using big data can be applicable in the study area of understanding consumption during the disaster, which generally needed short-term government intervention and evaluation. Einav and Levin (2014) pointed to the potential of big data and its predictive tool...