Lockdowns in Europe could have averted tens of thousands of deaths
31 Mar, 2020The infection-control measures put in place in many European countries – such as national lockdowns – are reducing the spread of the coronavirus. Across 11 countries in Western and Northern Europe, between 21,000 and 120,000 deaths will probably have been avoided by the end of March, according to a new model by a group at Imperial College London.
The study, published by the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team on 30 March, estimates the effects that non-pharmaceutical interventions, which also include closing schools and banning of mass gatherings, are having on controlling the spread of the virus across parts of Europe, including Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. The authors measure the effects by a change in the virus' effective reproduction number.