COVID
            ‐19 pandemic‐related lockdown: response time is more important than its strictness

Tal Pupko,Noa Ecker,Keren Halabi,Oren Avram,Itay Mayrose,Natan Nagar,Gil Loewenthal,Shiran Abadi

doi:10.15252/emmm.202013171

Abstract

The rapid spread of SARS‐CoV‐2 and its threat to health systems worldwide have led governments to take acute actions to enforce social distancing. Previous studies used complex epidemiological models to quantify the effect of lockdown policies on infection rates. However, these rely on prior assumptions or on official regulations. Here, we use country‐specific reports of daily mobility from people cellular usage to model social distancing. Our data‐driven model enabled the extraction of lockdown characteristics which were crossed with observed mortality rates to show that: (i) the time at which social distancing was initiated is highly correlated with the number of deaths, r 2 = 0.64, while the lockdown strictness or its duration is not as informative; (ii) a delay of 7.49 days in initiating social distancing would double the number of deaths; and (iii) the immediate response has a prolonged effect on COVID‐19 death toll.

Highlights

In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic has rapidly spread around the globe, threatening health and economical systems
Our data-driven model enabled the extraction of mobility characteristics which were crossed with observed mortality rates to show that: (1) the time at which social distancing was initiated is of utmost importance and explains 62% of the number of deaths, while the lockdown strictness or its duration are not as informative; (2) a delay of 7.49 days in initiating social distancing would double the number of deaths; and (3) the expected time from infection to fatality is 25.75 days and significantly varies among countries
The mobility in a single country during the observed time period of the COVID-19 pandemic can generally be divided into four phases: (1) a stable phase of high mobility; (2) a sharp drop; (3) a period of low mobility; and (4) a gradual incline towards a normal routine (Fig. 1)

Summary

Introduction

In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic has rapidly spread around the globe, threatening health and economical systems. Many governments attempted to minimize exposure to the virus by limiting cross-border arrivals. Governments that used lockdown to enforce social distancing varied in their policy, timing, and duration, in particular relative to the mortality rate in their country. Enforced a severe, nationwide, lockdown on March 10, when over 35,000 confirmed cases and almost 3,000 deaths had already been recorded. Lockdown policies were embraced at earlier stages in attempt to prevent severe outbreaks. For instance, reached the strict lockdown on March 19 with a relatively low number of 648 confirmed cases and no deaths to that day. Several countries, such as Sweden and Japan, advocated social distancing but did not enforce a lockdown as a means of coronavirus spread prevention

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