Behavioral changes before lockdown and decreased retail and recreation mobility during lockdown contributed most to controlling COVID-19 in Western countries.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted a lockdown in many countries to control the exponential spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, hereby reducing the time-varying basic reproduction number (R_t) to below one. Governments are looking for evidence to balance the demand of their citizens to ease some of the restriction, against the fear of a new peak in infections. In this study, we wanted to quantify the relative contribution of mobility restrictions, and that of behavioral changes that occurred already before the lockdowns, on the reduction of transmission during lockdowns in Western countries in early 2020.

Methods

Incidence data of cases and deaths from the first wave of infections for 35 Western countries (32 European, plus Israel, USA and Canada) were analyz

SUBMITTER: Deforche K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8022318 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature