Emergency health and safety measures taken in six major countries have prevented more than 500 million infections during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, according to a study published Monday by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.
The report, published in the journal “Nature,” is the first peer-reviewed analysis of local, regional and national coronavirus containment and prevention policies in China, South Korea, Italy, Iran, France and the United States.
The researchers estimate public health and safety measures like travel restrictions, business and school closures and shelter-in-place orders have prevented about 530 million infections between January and April 6, when the study ended.
“I don’t think any human endeavor has ever saved so many lives in such a short period of time,” said lead author Solomon Hsiang, the director of UC Berkeley’s Global Policy Laboratory. “There have been huge personal costs to staying home and canceling events, but the data show that each day made a profound difference.”
Researchers did not estimate the number of deaths prevented during that time because fatality rates in all six countries likely would’ve been even higher as the number of cases increased.
The study analyzed 1,717 policies implemented in the six countries, where the number of new infections grew an average of 38 percent each day before coronavirus prevention policies were put in place.
“So many have suffered tragic losses already,” Hsiang said. “And yet, April and May would have been even more devastating if we had done nothing, with a toll we probably can’t imagine.”
In the United States alone, the researchers estimated that coronavirus policies prevented some 4.8 million confirmed cases and 60 million total cases. Only China prevented more confirmed cases, 37 million, and total cases, 285 million, during the study’s time period.
The study found that self-isolation and business and economic lockdowns produced the largest benefits while other policies like travel restrictions did not produce clear case prevention benefits. Benefits of public health policy usually took about three weeks to appear.
According to the researchers, early preventative action in countries like Brazil, India and Mexico where cases are taking off could be the difference in preventing thousands of cases and deaths in the coming months.
“It’s as if the roof was about to fall in, but we caught it before it crushed everyone,” Hsiang said of the six countries’ timing. “It was difficult and exhausting, and we are still holding it up. But by coming together, we did something as a society that nobody could have done alone and which has never been done before.”
44 comments
Interesting, World Health Organization just came out sayin’
that asymptomatic spread of Coronavirus is “very rare.”
Will be interesting in a year or two MAYBE when truth of what is fact and what isn’t comes out.
Good old Berkzoid. A pimple on the West Coast that should be popped. They have all sorts of whacked ideas coming out of that institution and city. I hate going to that town because of their crazy attitude
WHO or Berkeley … I will trust the World Health Organization before I even consider anything from Berkeley.
Not sure if it is blocked behind a paywall on Nature, but I would love to review and check their methodology for myself.
There’s been a lot of lackluster studies coming out of “prestigious” universities in recent years.
UC bezerkly
like they can be trusted to be unbiased
really ….that like saying
Pelosi is in love with trump
that college breeds demorats
like anything that comes out of there is pure socialist and democrat agenda
it is latterly taught by the proffessors and I believe you have to be a dem to work there
this article is like asking oscama why he gave billions of dollars to IRAN
you wont get a straight answer or even factual
I would believe a five year old before anything out of the Berkley democrat farm
Not our fault if the truth proves to be aligned with liberal policies. Also not our fault that higher levels of education and understanding correlates with a more liberal mindset.
Funny how that is, eh?
The results of this study states “Covid-19 grows approximately 43 percent per day.. implying a doubling time of approximately 2 days.”.
But we didn’t see that growth rate in countries that didn’t lockdown. And we didn’t see that growth rate aboard the Diamond Princess.
We have a virtual control group in the country of Sweden and yet this study makes no mention of why it’s data is wildly incongruent with the the study’s findings.
The study makes no mention of how season and weather could effect the spread.
These are damn important variables and the absence of any discussion of their influence severely detracts from the credibility of this study.
I guess they’re hoping we’ll be dazzled by their egregious use of graphs and charts. But this looks like the same old propaganda to me.
@Jessica
I would like to see where you got your “facts.”
@Jessica
You’re referring to studies that show that higher education leads to a more liberal mindset. Who do you think conducted those studies?
Basically you’re saying that people with degrees have studied themselves and concluded that they smarter then everyone else.
That’s a vicious cycle of idiocy. And you’re helping to perpetuate it. So yeah…that is your fault.
@jessica you obviously don’t understand how (liberal) colleges operate. Especially UC Berkeley.
Jessica don’t throw out your elbow patting yourself on the back… and more importantly, don’t expect me to pay for your student loans either.
You signed up for those loans and you are going to pay for those loans. I don’t care how long you have to work at Bed Bath and Beyond to pay for them.
Funny how that is, eh?
Wow, that’s one arrogant barista……….
@ Pyrrhus
What you fail to mention is this:
The average college debt among student loan borrowers in America is $32,731, according to the Federal Reserve. This is an increase of approximately 20% from 2015-2016. Most borrowers have between $25,000 and $50,000 outstanding in student loan debt. But more than 600,000 borrowers in the country are over $200,000 in student debt, and that number may continue to increase.
To get an average of 75K, that means students from tier
Phyrrus: I believe much of what you say is incorrect. First, lets start with the conservatives hate education thing. Trump went to U. of Penn’s Wharton school for a degree. The previous republican president had a master’s degree. The one before that went to Yale and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, an academic honor society. Those backgrounds conflict with your beliefs. You point to the monetary success of UCB grads as if that makes them correct, but also give away the information that computer science grads are goosing up those numbers. How in your analysis do you tie people who are coding lines of Python or C++ with being correct about who should be president? That does not make sense.
I will tell you a bit of why I have a bad impression of UCB besides their politics. I really do not like arrogance or hypocrisy, and UCB has a big advertising campaign congratulating itself for diversity and inclusiveness, while at the same time the reality is that if you were to put on a red MAGA hat and try to walk through the campus you would be verbally and probably physically assaulted. Try it.
@Jessica
Too many educated idiots, WAY too many. A book smart person (can read, pass tests, earn degree) who has no common sense. Because they have a degree in their “own eye” they feel they do have common sense. I repeat in their own eye they feel they do but this is not the case. It’s abundant and on display in California.
These days everyone is sold they must have a college degree as the new norm but we all know common sense is anything but common? How do all those educated people some how now have this and other skill sets not taught in a book or test? Clearly educated idiots exist in large numbers. Just sharing some more TRUTH with you.
If China had been forthcoming about the nature of this manufactured illness, the pandemic would not have spread. Regarding Trumps decision to restrict travel from China on Jan. 31, top Democrats and media figures immediately derided the move as unnecessary and xenophobic — and they are now beating a hasty retreat from that position as the coronavirus continues to ravage the economy and cause scores of deaths.
15 million lives give or take.
530MM at 3% mortality rate (3% may seem high but given the overload of 530MM that would have crippled health systems globally with cascading effects on public health that factor is arguable).
but hey…it’s all about you waking up in a free country and don’t need no stinking masks, so who cares?!!
So you’re just making up numbers now? That’s very scientific of you.
How long were we locked down before CCC instituted mandatory masks? And with all those naked faces running around, when were our hospitals overrun?
That’s right, Never.
@ Masked,
Having studied infectious diseases, epidemiology, biostatistics etc, one cannot simply extrapolate the mortality numbers of COVID by simple division. The elderly (70+ yrs old) are at higher risk of contracting COVID, more likely to already have comorbidities that may increase the likelihood of mortality from COVID, as well as other important factors. Then, there are various complicated models that must be developed, risk factors weighted and run, to see what the actual findings were, before any conclusions can be drawn.
Leave the analyses to the experts please. Thank you.
I thought you can’t prove a negative? Since this report is apparently doing just that, it’s pure political apologetics for having taken such draconian measures that will eventually be proven to have been wrong. Why? Because 80+ % of those infected recover. Because the WHO now says that asymptomatic people rarely spread the virus. So if that is true, can we get rid of the face coverings and all that ridiculous distancing? And while we’re at it, can we just return to normal life?
Of course, that would still mean that sick people need to stay home – they are the ones doing all the infecting!
You cannot prove a negative, but negative or positive, the burden of proof is on the claimant and from what I can tell, this study fails to provide proof. It’s all conjecture.
Just playing defense for the people who want to destroy our economy and keep is destroyed until November.
Jessica is right. The polls show that trump’s popularity is highest among non-college-educated voters.
Your 100k tuition is a waste of your parents money. You can not purchase common sense or a high IQ. Nothing better then a group of “smart” people acting really stupid.. your education means squat. Learn something useful with your soft hands
Hahaha…yes that is me laughing at any of you who actually take this BS “study” seriously. Uh, dummies, this drivel is Swiss cheese with all the holes in it. Just some doozies being it was submitted for review on MARCH 22nd, the authors rely heavily on data from CHINA *smirk* and admit they don’t have sufficient data for good estimates of other countries, there’s no comparison to countries that did not engage in draconian lockdowns, and perhaps most ridiculous, they cite the laughably wrong Neil Ferguson and Imperial College and used his horrifically wrong models to calculate their equally insane figures.
truth and liberal policies
hmmmm
truth liberals flooded the state with illegals preaching diversity and racism to get it done
liberal policy ….
well by flooding the state with illegals ….who were housed where …
hmm all the low income housing
but wait so 9 million illegals came in and what happened
well …American citizens who were low income had nowhere to live
since the gov in this state was doling out section 8’s to illegals like candy
which the apartment management companies ate up like guaranteed candy
denying American renters because the state was paying more
hmmm does that mean that american citizens had no where to live ….
so where did they all end up
hey Berkley where is that study at ….lol
weeelllll ….oh that’s right on the streets …..yes johnny
amercian citizens were passed over by democrat politicians and sent to the streets so they could flood the state with illegals to boost the population for the census…..
but why would they do thaaaat …..
wwweeeelllll because the census will lock in for 10 years federal money allotments that have no strings attached ….oh wait also will allow for more representatives….yes more reps in congress ….more democrats
so the state is being used as a giant piñata full of fed money and more dem reps to flood congress with socialist agendas to overthrow the American gov of democracy for a communist socialist gov …..
again where was Berkley on that info ….ehhh
“It’s as if the roof was about to fall in, but we caught it before it crushed everyone,” “It was difficult and exhausting, and we are still holding it up.”
Hope he doesn’t break his arm patting himself on the back.
“The study found that self-isolation and business and economic lockdowns produced the largest benefits while other policies like travel restrictions did not produce clear case prevention benefits.”
This simply doesn’t pass the smell test. I’d like to see the “peers” that “reviewed” this for Nature which, by the way, is not a “hard science” journal. It is far too early to draw any firm conclusions about whether what they did made any significant difference. Legitimate science doesn’t happen that fast.
UCB is just playing defense for the Demcrats. The jobs of the local Democrat Karens running our cities are at risk and they know it. And don’t forget the CDC insisted multiple times that mitigation was about slowing the rate of infection to give health care providers time to gear-up and that mitigation would not prevent transmission. Mitigation slows transmission but it does not prevent transmission. The CDC stuck by this message the entire time.
Now, one UCB study is saying mitigation prevented transmission.
These studies are always contradictory. This is just one. It will take years to get the truth and since the scientific community is no less political than any other, in the end the “truth” could turn out to be a lie if the lie results in more funding.
Who did the study? The UC is completely closed. All workers that maintain it are not working and those that are, are on rotation every other day… The UC told everyone stay home…
ehhhh…. the right metaphor would be as such:
“We thought the roof might be collapsing, so we had everyone run for the stairway and doorways… then we watched it for a while… now we realize the roof was never going to collapse but its a good thing we moved. Now we are back in the house and everything is fine. Oh… and our 95 yo grandma died, but she was already on her way out.
Probably not a good time to beat on their chests. We have not seen the results or lack there of from protestors and looters ignoring social distancing. It should become clear in the next week or so………
Thank you Trump.
500M saved compared to … doing nothing at all? But that was never going to happen. People slowed their activities well before the legal lockdowns.
Prevented or simply postponed?
Bingo
UC Berkeley
ahahahah
“…shelter in place orders have prevented 530 million cases from January to April 6th”… Uhhhhhhhh… What? We didn’t even lock down until March 17th… Masks weren’t required until April sometime.. What an absolute blatant lie..
Studies are just that; studies
No proof
No fact
Just guessing and playing around with numbers and facts
Yes – it is “ higher education”
Yes – these are the “smart” people
But whats on paper and the real happenings are two things
I call it BS
I know several people who have had their hours cut back, or who are not working at all. And their situations are getting more dire. They expected to be out of work for a couple of weeks, not months.
The newest study by WHO says it’s rare for asymptomatic people to spread the virus. Meanwhile we can expect our County bureaucrats to continue to drag their feet, while people lose their life savings and businesses.
Elderly people will continue to get seriously ill because it is still very difficult to get adequate medical treatment.
Other counties are opening up at a faster pace, and they will recover more quickly. Some of Contra Costa Counties’s new harsh edicts will linger and we will be less able bounce back even after our county finally re-opens.
I don’t believe much of the speculation that comes out of UCB.
Those folks are brilliant at many things and have radical ideas about many other things.
They’re not above bending data to fit their views.
Is this from the same 1000+ “scientists” that say one topic of protest isn’t safe, but another type is? I wouldn’t trust anything at this point. The experts have flip-flopped back and forth on so many issues, had models that were grossly inaccurate, made decisions that were clearly political, violated their own lockdown rules, etc…
IT”S FINALLY HAPPENED – The geniuses at UCB have figuered out how to prove a negative.
Next up……THE PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE.
Followed by world peace.
Film @ 11:00
IT”S FINALLY HAPPENED – The geniuses at UCB have figuered out how to prove a negative.
Next up……THE PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE.
Followed by world peace.
Film @ 11:00
The genises’ @ UCB figuered out how to prove a negative?
Next up….the perpetual motion machine.
Followed by world peace.
oops please delete my mistakes,. Sorry.
I would also like to see the methodology. Specifically how did they factor in asymptomatic cases that were never subject to testing?
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