Against Coronavirus: Study Says Simple Actions May Be More Effective Than Quarantines

A team of researchers from the University of Vienna, Austria, analyzed the relative effectiveness of a large number of measures implemented in different countries of the world to stop the spread of the coronavirus, and found that some “interventions not pharmaceuticals ”were not very disruptive and low cost of instrumentation can be as effective or more than the most intrusive and drasticlike strict quarantines.

The non-pharmaceutical interventions (NFIs) analyzed included, among others, all those related to movement and gathering of people, those for the supply of medical and protective equipment, communication and the improvement of patient detection systems.

The study covers what happened 79 territories. And the determination of the effectiveness of the measures was carried out by combining computational techniques that merge statistical tools, inference and artificial intelligence. In turn, the results were validated against data external to the workplace, corresponding to virtually every country in the world.

“Our results indicate that a suitable combination of INF to slow the spread of the virus. The least disruptive and inexpensive INFs can be just as effective as the more intrusive and drastic (eg, a nationwide lockdown). Using country-specific hypothetical scenarios, we assess how the effectiveness of the INF depends on the local context as well as the timing of its adoption, paving the way for predict the effectiveness of future interventions“, say the researchers in the article in which they published their work, published in the scientific journal Human behavior of nature.

As might be expected, scientists have found heterogeneity in the effectiveness of different measures depending on where they are in the world. “We observed that the implementation time, the measures previously implemented, the various governance indicators, as well as human and social development, influence the effectiveness of INF in different countries and to varying degrees, ”the experts noted.

According to one of the rankings Prepared by scientists, the measurements that had the greatest impact on covid-19 contagion rates were cancellation of meetings of a few people, the closure of educational establishments, border restrictions and the increased availability of protective elements.

In this list, follow the restrictions on individual travel and only then the national lockdown (national closing), in position number six.

Another striking finding from the research is that improvement of detection systems virus ranks 15th for most effective measures.

The work, published Monday, analyzed data from 6,068 INFs implemented in March and April 2020, when most European countries and US states were experiencing their first waves of infection from the pandemic.

Another conclusion of the work is the low efficiency parent of disinfection of environments. “A clear picture emerges in which issues of social distancing and travel restrictions rank first in all methods [de medición utilizados]while environmental measures (eg cleaning and disinfection of common surfaces) are classified as the least effective, ”say the authors.

LGP