Inferring the effectiveness of government interventions against COVID-19

Brauner, Jan M., Mindermann, Sören, Sharma, Mrinank, Johnston, David, Salvatier, John, Gavenčiak, Tomáš, Stephenson, Anna B., Leech, Gavin, Altman, George, Mikulik, Vladimir, Norman, Alexander John, Monrad, Joshua Teperowski, Besiroglu, Tamay, Ge, Hong, Hartwick, Meghan A., Teh, Yee Whye, Chindelevitch, Leonid, Gal, Yarin and Kulveit, Jan (2021) Inferring the effectiveness of government interventions against COVID-19. Science, 371 (6531). ISSN 0036-8075

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Abstract

Governments are attempting to control the COVID-19 pandemic with nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). However, the effectiveness of different NPIs at reducing transmission is poorly understood. We gathered chronological data on the implementation of NPIs for several European and non-European countries between January and the end of May 2020. We estimated the effectiveness of these NPIs, which range from limiting gathering sizes and closing businesses or educational institutions to stay-at-home orders. To do so, we used a Bayesian hierarchical model that links NPI implementation dates to national case and death counts and supported the results with extensive empirical validation. Closing all educational institutions, limiting gatherings to 10 people or less, and closing face-to-face businesses each reduced transmission considerably. The additional effect of stay-at-home orders was comparatively small.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://science.sciencemag.org/
Additional Information:	© 2021 The Authors
Divisions:	Health Policy
Subjects:	R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology
Date Deposited:	04 Mar 2021 16:27
Last Modified:	12 Dec 2024 02:28
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/108954

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