Hence, these numbers are supposed to account for all COVID-19 cases identified on a specific day.ĭata on NPIs were collected by our research team. Reported SARS-CoV-2 cases for each country between February and May 2020 were obtained from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, which was developed for real-time tracking of reported cases of COVID-19 and directly aggregates cases recorded by local authorities in order to overcome time delays from alternative reporting bodies. This amounts to ∼3.3 million reported cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and covers a population of ∼0.8 billion people. Using a semi-mechanistic Bayesian hierarchical model, we estimated the effects of NPIs on the number of new infections across n = 20 Western countries during the first epidemic wave: the United States, Canada, Australia, the EU-15 countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom), Norway, and Switzerland. Here we contribute further evidence on the combined and individual effectiveness of NPIs. By combining data from multiple countries, a couple of studies have attempted to compare the effectiveness of individual NPIs however, the evidence from these studies regarding which NPIs were particularly effective is still inconclusive. Thereby, NPIs were often packaged into bundles and their combined effectiveness was assessed and confirmed. Examples include school closures, venue closures, or stay-at-home orders.Įarly studies on the population-level effects of NPIs analyzed their effectiveness mostly within a single country. These represent public health-policy measures that were intended to diminish transmission rates and, to this end, aimed at reducing person-to-person contacts via so-called social distancing. Efforts to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2 focused on non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). The novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has developed into a global epidemic. With this retrospective cross-country analysis, we provide estimates regarding the effectiveness of different NPIs during the first epidemic wave. Among the NPIs considered, bans of large gatherings were most effective, followed by venue and school closures, whereas stay-at-home orders and work-from-home orders were least effective.
Based on data from the first epidemic wave of n = 20 countries (i.e., the United States, Canada, Australia, the EU-15 countries, Norway, and Switzerland), we estimate the relative reduction in the number of new infections attributed to each NPI. Here we study the effectiveness of seven NPIs in reducing the number of new infections, which was inferred from the reported cases of COVID-19 using a semi-mechanistic Bayesian hierarchical model. To control its spread, countries have implemented non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), such as school closures, bans of small gatherings, or even stay-at-home orders. The novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has rapidly developed into a global epidemic.
Nicolas Banholzer, Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Software, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, 1, * Eva van Weenen, Investigation, Writing – review & editing, 1 Adrian Lison, Investigation, Writing – review & editing, 1 Alberto Cenedese, Investigation, 1 Arne Seeliger, Investigation, Writing – review & editing, 1 Bernhard Kratzwald, Investigation, Writing – review & editing, 1 Daniel Tschernutter, Investigation, Writing – review & editing, 1 Joan Puig Salles, Investigation, 1 Pierluigi Bottrighi, Investigation, 1 Sonja Lehtinen, Methodology, Writing – review & editing, 2 Stefan Feuerriegel, Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, 1 and Werner Vach, Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing 3, 4