The impact of lockdown measures on COVID-19: a worldwide comparison

Abstract

Objective We aimed to determine which aspects of the COVID-19 national response are independent predictors of COVID-19 mortality and case numbers. Design Comparative observational study between nations using publically available data Setting Worldwide Participants Covid-19 patients Interventions Stringency of 11 lockdown policies recorded by the Blavatnik School of Government database and earliness of each policy relative to first recorded national cases Main outcome measures Association with log10 National deaths (LogD) and log10 National cases (LogC) on the 29th April 2020 corrected for predictive demographic variables Results Early introduction was associated with reduced mortality (n=137) and case numbers (n=150) for every policy aside from testing policy, contact tracing and workplace closure. Maximum policy stringency was only found to be associated with reduced mortality (p=0.003) or case numbers (p=0.010) for international travel restrictions. A multivariate model, generated using demographic parameters (r2=0.72 for LogD and r2=0.74 for LogC), was used to assess the timing of each policy. Early introduction of first measure (significance p=0.048, regression coefficient β=-0.004, 95% confidence interval 0 to -0.008), early international travel restrictions (p=0.042, (β=-0.005, -0.001 to -0.009) and early public information (p=0.021, β=-0.005, -0.001 to -0.009) were associated with reduced LogC. Early introduction of first measure (p=0.003, β=-0.007, -0.003 to -0.011), early international travel restrictions (p=0.003, β=-0.008, -0.004 to-0.012), early public information (p=0.003, β=-0.007, 0.003 to -0.011), early generalised workplace closure (p=0.031, β=-0.012, -0.002 to -0.022) and early generalised school closure (p=0.050, β=-0.012, 0 to -0.024) were associated with reduced LogC. Conclusions At this stage in the pandemic, early institution of public information, international travel restrictions, and workplace closure are associated with reduced COVID-19 mortality and maintaining these policies may help control the pandemic.

Predicting the future SARS-COV-2 reproductive rate

“…The international Lockdown response has been meticulously documented by the Oxford University Government Response tracker[7] which consists of individual lockdown and economic policies scored on an ordinal scale and a composite lockdown score which measures the overall lockdown strength, on a daily basis, for almost every country in the world, a sizeable undertaking which has improved our understanding of the effectiveness of Lockdown strategies. [8] While the lockdown has been widely effective, it has come with substantial financial, social and political costs and exerted a heavy toll on the mental [9], [10] and physical health [11]—[13]of the population. Perpetual lockdown is widely deemed to be politically untenable, though a lockdown of some degree may be the only way of holding the disease back and reducing mortality while vaccine development is in progress.…”

Projecting the impact of behaviour and isolation interventions and super spreader events from mass gatherings and international travel on Malaysia’s COVID-19 epidemic trajectories using an augmented SEIR model

“…The data suggests that the implementation of behaviour interventions, specifically the lockdown, had a significant impact in reducing the peak and increasing the rate of declining cases. This appears in line with the effect of lockdowns to suppress the initial wave of COVID-19 community transmissions taken by countries such as China [23,24], and even on subsequent waves such as in Victoria, Australia [25], specifically international travel restrictions and workplace closure, which appears to reduce the R0 [26], rapidly bringing down the number of new and active cases of COVID-19, and reducing mortality [27].…”

What variables can better predict the number of infections and deaths worldwide by SARS-CoV-2? Variation through time

“…Daon et al (2020) suggest that an additional prominent reason for the especially wide and rapid spread of COVID-19 is likely to be the current high prevalence of international travel 45 . According to Papadopoulus et al (2020) early international travel restrictions may help control the pandemic 46 , and Walch et al (2020) found that border closure had the potential of preventing cases 43 . For Chinazzi et al (2020) most of the imported cases outside China have likely originated from air travel 47 and Linka et al suggest that the spread of COVID-19 in Europe closely followed air travel patterns and that the severe travel restrictions implemented there resulted in substantial decreases in the disease’s spread 48 .…”

“…For Papadopoulus et al (2020) early introduction of these policies are of greater importance than its stringency. 46…”