Lockdown Effects on Sars-CoV-2 Transmission – The evidence from Northern Jutland

Kepp, Kasper Planeta; Bjørnskov, Christian

doi:10.1101/2020.12.28.20248936

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Such intuitions are inferred from their actions to tighten stay-at-home restrictions [27]. Our result is consistent with the outcome of a preceding analysis that stated infection control was apparently effective before the mandate, and thus, voluntary social behavior, rather than legal enforcement, is more crucial in combating a pandemic [43,44].…”

Section: Discussion Of the Findingssupporting

confidence: 87%

The Role of Information and Communications Technology Policies and Infrastructure in Curbing the Spread of the Novel Coronavirus: Cross-country Comparative Study

Eum

Kim

2022

JMIR Public Health Surveill

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Background Despite worldwide efforts, control of COVID-19 transmission and its after effects is lagging. As seen from the cases of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza, worldwide crises associated with infections and their side effects are likely to recur in the future because of extensive international interactions. Consequently, there is an urgent need to identify the factors that can mitigate disease spread. We observed that the transmission speed and severity of consequences of COVID-19 varied substantially across countries, signaling the need for a country-level investigation. Objective We aimed to investigate how distancing-enabling information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and medical ICT infrastructure, and related policies have affected the cumulative number of confirmed cases, fatality rate, and initial speed of transmission across different countries. Methods We analyzed the determinants of COVID-19 transmission during the relatively early days of the pandemic by conducting regression analysis based on our data for country-level characteristics, including demographics, culture, ICT infrastructure, policies, economic status, and transmission of COVID-19. To gain further insights, we conducted a subsample analysis for countries with low population density. Results Our full sample analysis showed that implied telehealth policy, which refers to the lack of a specific telehealth-related policy but presence of a general eHealth policy, was associated with lower fatality rates when controlled for cultural characteristics (P=.004). In particular, the fatality rate for countries with an implied telehealth policy was lower than that for others by 2.7%. Interestingly, stated telehealth policy, which refers to the existence of a specified telehealth policy, was found to not be associated with lower fatality rates (P=.30). Furthermore, countries with a government-run health website had 36% fewer confirmed cases than those without it, when controlled for cultural characteristics (P=.03). Our analysis further revealed that the interaction between implied telehealth policy and training ICT health was significant (P=.01), suggesting that implied telehealth policy may be more effective when in-service training on ICT is provided to health professionals. In addition, credit card ownership, as an enabler of convenient e-commerce transactions and distancing, showed a negative association with fatality rates in the full sample analysis (P=.04), but not in the subsample analysis (P=.76), highlighting that distancing-enabling ICT is more useful in densely populated countries. Conclusions Our findings demonstrate important relationships between national traits and COVID-19 infections, suggesting guidelines for policymakers to minimize the negative consequences of pandemics. The findings suggest physicians’ autonomous use of medical ICT and strategic allocation of distancing-enabling ICT infrastructure in countries with high population density to maximize efficiency. This study also encourages further research to investigate the role of health policies in combatting COVID-19 and other pandemics.

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Section: Discussion Of the Findingssupporting

confidence: 87%

The Role of Information and Communications Technology Policies and Infrastructure in Curbing the Spread of the Novel Coronavirus: Cross-country Comparative Study

Eum

Kim

2022

JMIR Public Health Surveill

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“…While the same numbers for the median county more negatively inclined towards to wearing masks are -44.54 and -0.37, also respectively". Kepp and Bjørnskov (2021) and Dave et al (2020) during our initial search on Google Scholar. One of the authors pointed us toward Hansen and Mano (2021), and we knew Abaluck et al (2022) from the media.…”

Section: Regression Discontinuity Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Policy responses being studied are not naturally occurring, but are decisions driven by the pandemic's trajectory and social and political will"). The Kepp andBjørnskov (2021), Fukumoto et al (2021), and Wang (2022) are not included in our review and meta-analysis, because they focus on cases and not on COVID-19 mortality. Dave et al (2020) is not included in our review, because it is a synthetic control method and lack jurisdictional variance.…”

Section: Regression Discontinuity Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Systematic Literature Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Lockdowns on COVID-19 Mortality II

Herby,

Jonung,

Hanke

2023

Preprint

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The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to determine the effect of lockdowns on COVID-19 mortality based on available empirical evidence. Lockdowns are defined as the imposition of at least one compulsory, non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI). We employ a systematic search and screening procedure in which 19,646 studies are identified that could potentially address the purpose of our study. After three levels of screening, 32 studies qualified. Of those, estimates from 22 studies could be converted to standardized measures for inclusion in the meta-analysis. They are separated into three groups: lockdown stringency index studies, shelter-in-place-order (SIPO) studies, and specific NPI studies. Stringency index studies find that the average lockdown in Europe and the United States in the spring of 2020 only reduced COVID-19 mortality by 3.2%. This translates into approximately 6,000 avoided deaths in Europe and 4,000 in the United States. SIPOs were also relatively ineffective in the spring of 2020, only reducing COVID-19 mortality by 2.0%. This translates into approximately 4,000 avoided deaths in Europe and 3,000 in the United States. Based on specific NPIs, we estimate that the average lockdown in Europe and the United States in the spring of 2020 reduced COVID-19 mortality by 10.7%. This translates into approximately 23,000 avoided deaths in Europe and 16,000 in the United States. In comparison, there are approximately 72,000 flu deaths in Europe and 38,000 flu deaths in the United States each year. When checked for potential biases, our results are robust. Our results are also supported by the natural experiments we have been able to identify. The results of our meta-analysis support the conclusion that lockdowns in the spring of 2020 had little to no effect on COVID-19 mortality. This result is consistent with the view that voluntary changes in behavior, such as social distancing, did play an important role in mitigating the pandemic.

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RETRACTED ARTICLE: Stay-at-home policy is a case of exception fallacy: an internet-based ecological study

Savaris

Pumi

Dalzochio

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

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A recent mathematical model has suggested that staying at home did not play a dominant role in reducing COVID-19 transmission. The second wave of cases in Europe, in regions that were considered as COVID-19 controlled, may raise some concerns. Our objective was to assess the association between staying at home (%) and the reduction/increase in the number of deaths due to COVID-19 in several regions in the world. In this ecological study, data from www.google.com/covid19/mobility/, ourworldindata.org and covid.saude.gov.br were combined. Countries with > 100 deaths and with a Healthcare Access and Quality Index of ≥ 67 were included. Data were preprocessed and analyzed using the difference between number of deaths/million between 2 regions and the difference between the percentage of staying at home. The analysis was performed using linear regression with special attention to residual analysis. After preprocessing the data, 87 regions around the world were included, yielding 3741 pairwise comparisons for linear regression analysis. Only 63 (1.6%) comparisons were significant. With our results, we were not able to explain if COVID-19 mortality is reduced by staying at home in ~ 98% of the comparisons after epidemiological weeks 9 to 34.

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Lockdown Effects on Sars-CoV-2 Transmission – The evidence from Northern Jutland

Cited by 9 publications

References 31 publications

The Role of Information and Communications Technology Policies and Infrastructure in Curbing the Spread of the Novel Coronavirus: Cross-country Comparative Study

The Role of Information and Communications Technology Policies and Infrastructure in Curbing the Spread of the Novel Coronavirus: Cross-country Comparative Study

A Systematic Literature Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Lockdowns on COVID-19 Mortality II

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Stay-at-home policy is a case of exception fallacy: an internet-based ecological study

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