US lockdown helped avert 60 million COVID-19 cases worldwide: Report

A study published in the journal Nature found that lockdown restrictions in the United States prevented over 60 million coronavirus cases, including 5 million in the country alone. The study compiled data on daily infection rates, changes in case definitions, and the timing of policy deployments, including travel restrictions, social distancing through cancellation of events, and suspensions of educational/commercial/religious activities, quarantines, and lockdowns. The data was collected from the earliest available dates to April 6, 2020, from six countries, the United States, South Korea, China, France, Italy, and Iran. 

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"Based on these results, we find that the deployment of anti-contagion policies in all six countries significantly and substantially slowed the pandemic. Our results suggest that ongoing anti-contagion policies have already substantially reduced the number of COVID-19 infections observed in the world today," the researchers wrote in the study. 

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Infections prevented by lockdown

"Our central estimates suggest that there would be roughly 37 million more cumulative confirmed cases (corresponding to 285 million more total infections, including the confirmed cases) in China, 11.5 million more confirmed cases in South Korea (38 million total infections), 2.1 million more confirmed cases in Italy (49 million total infections), 5 million more confirmed cases in Iran (54 million total infections), 1.4 million more confirmed cases in France (45 million total infections), and 4.8 million more confirmed cases (60 million total infections) in the US had these countries never enacted any anti-contagion policies since the start of the pandemic," researchers added further. 

According to the study, the lockdown measures imposed by the aforementioned six countries helped prevent millions of COVID-19 infections. If China would have imposed its lockdown a little late then the world tally from the virus at present would have stood at over 285 million and more than 37 million in China alone. Meanwhile, South Korea which is being regarded as a model for the rest of the world on handling the outbreak would have corresponded to 38 million more cases had it not been for the early lockdown. 

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According to figures by Johns Hopkins University, the world has recorded over 7 million confirmed coronavirus cases, of which more than 4,00,000 people have lost their lives to date. The United States is the worst-hit country with nearly 2 million confirmed infections and over 1,10,500 deaths. 

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(Image Credit: AP)