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This ought to get some of our Calgun's Epidemiologists seeing red LOL...
A new, peer-reviewed study by UC Berkeley researchers published Monday in the journal Nature found that emergency health measures taken in six countries prevented about 530 million COVID-19 infections, of which 62 million would probably have been “confirmed cases.”
The analysis looked at 1,717 policies applied in China, South Korea, Italy, Iran, France and the United States from the emergence of the virus in January to April 6.
For the U.S., interventions averted 4.8 million confirmed cases and 60 million total cases.
“What our team specializes in is using econometrics to understand the effects of different policies around the world … So we thought actually we can study the exponential growth of these infections the same way we normally study the exponential growth of the economy,” said Solomon Hsiang, director of Berkeley’s Global Policy Laboratory and Chancellor’s Professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy.
“We can see the pain, the economic suffering that’s happening in different communities, that’s very salient, very tangible. We see when we’re losing money. What we don’t see is lives that are never lost,” Hsiang said.
The study crunched data on the number of confirmed cases in each country based on local testing procedures and calculated what total infections would likely have been if everyone had been tested. It concluded that anti-contagion polices in all six countries significantly and substantially slowed the pandemic.
Here are some of the takeaways of the study:
—Home isolation, business closures and lockdowns had the greatest impact in putting the brakes on the pandemic.
—Results of travel restrictions and bans of gatherings had mixed results. Iran and France benefited, but the effect on the United States was not clear.
—No evidence that school closures had an impact was found, but the results were not conclusive and more research is necessary, the scientists said.
—It typically took three weeks for an anti-contagion policy to achieve its full impact on the spread of the virus. The scientists suggested that a 2- to 3-week time frame could be expected for re-emergence of the virus in countries that are relaxing policies.
—Regarding the rise of confirmed COVID-19 cases in nations that were not part of the study, such as Brazil, Peru and Pakistan, the researchers noted that time was of the essence: “Our analysis of existing policies indicates that seemingly small delays in policy deployment likely produced dramatically different health outcomes.”
A new, peer-reviewed study by UC Berkeley researchers published Monday in the journal Nature found that emergency health measures taken in six countries prevented about 530 million COVID-19 infections, of which 62 million would probably have been “confirmed cases.”
The analysis looked at 1,717 policies applied in China, South Korea, Italy, Iran, France and the United States from the emergence of the virus in January to April 6.
For the U.S., interventions averted 4.8 million confirmed cases and 60 million total cases.
“What our team specializes in is using econometrics to understand the effects of different policies around the world … So we thought actually we can study the exponential growth of these infections the same way we normally study the exponential growth of the economy,” said Solomon Hsiang, director of Berkeley’s Global Policy Laboratory and Chancellor’s Professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy.
“We can see the pain, the economic suffering that’s happening in different communities, that’s very salient, very tangible. We see when we’re losing money. What we don’t see is lives that are never lost,” Hsiang said.
The study crunched data on the number of confirmed cases in each country based on local testing procedures and calculated what total infections would likely have been if everyone had been tested. It concluded that anti-contagion polices in all six countries significantly and substantially slowed the pandemic.
Here are some of the takeaways of the study:
—Home isolation, business closures and lockdowns had the greatest impact in putting the brakes on the pandemic.
—Results of travel restrictions and bans of gatherings had mixed results. Iran and France benefited, but the effect on the United States was not clear.
—No evidence that school closures had an impact was found, but the results were not conclusive and more research is necessary, the scientists said.
—It typically took three weeks for an anti-contagion policy to achieve its full impact on the spread of the virus. The scientists suggested that a 2- to 3-week time frame could be expected for re-emergence of the virus in countries that are relaxing policies.
—Regarding the rise of confirmed COVID-19 cases in nations that were not part of the study, such as Brazil, Peru and Pakistan, the researchers noted that time was of the essence: “Our analysis of existing policies indicates that seemingly small delays in policy deployment likely produced dramatically different health outcomes.”
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