The impact of large-scale infection control policies on the COVID-19 pandemic

Mohamed Ibrahim Bassyouni
2020 / 6 / 11




Governments around the world are responding to the new coronavirus (COVID-19) with unprecedented policies aimed at slowing the rate of infection growth. Many measures, such as school closures and restraint of residents on their homes, impose significant and visible costs on society, but their benefits cannot be -dir-ectly observed and are currently only understood through practical simulations 2-4. Here, we collect new data about 1717 non-drug local, regional, and national interventions that have been published in the ongoing epidemic across localities in China, South Korea, Italy, Iran, France, and the United States (United States). Next, we apply microscopic econometric methods, which are commonly used to measure the impact of policies on economic growth 5,6, for the experimental evaluation of the impact of these anti-infection policies on the rate of infection growth. In the absence of policy measures, we estimate that early COVID-19 infections show exponential growth rates of around 38% per day. We find that infection control policies slow down this growth significantly and significantly. Some policies have different effects on different population groups, but we get solid evidence that the currently deployed policy packages achieve significant, beneficial, and measurable health outcomes. We estimate that in these six countries, interventions prevented´-or-delayed the arrangement of 62 million confirmed cases, which corresponds to avoiding approximately 530 million injuries. These results may help know whether these policies should be published, intensified, lifted,´-or-when they can be deployed, and can support decision-making in 180 other countries where COVID-19 7 has been reported.




Add comment
Rate the article

Bad 12345678910 Very good
                                                                                    
Result : 100% Participated in the vote : 1