Open AccessCOVID ‐19 pandemic‐related lockdown: response time is more important than its strictness
Author(s) -
Loewenthal Gil,
Abadi Shiran,
Avram Oren,
Halabi Keren,
Ecker Noa,
Nagar Natan,
Mayrose Itay,
Pupko Tal
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
embo molecular medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.923
H-Index - 107
eISSN - 1757-4684
pISSN - 1757-4676
DOI - 10.15252/emmm.202013171
Subject(s) - tel aviv , george (robot) , library science , biomedicine , sociology , classics , history , art history , computer science , biology , genetics
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.