European lockdowns prevented 3 million coronavirus deaths, new study claims
- The 11 nations studied were Germany, France, Italy, Britain, Spain, Belgium, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland
- Researchers estimated that between 12 and 15 million people had been infected in those countries
Research by Imperial College London, whose scientists are advising the British government on the virus, found that restrictions such as stay-at-home orders had worked to bring the epidemic under control.
Using European Centre of Disease Control data on deaths in 11 nations in the period up to May 4, they compared the number of observed deaths in the countries against those predicted by their model if no restrictions had been imposed. They estimated that about 3.1 million deaths had been averted by the policies.
Researchers also calculated that the interventions had caused the reproduction number – how many people someone with the virus infects – to drop by an average of 82 per cent, to below 1.0.
“Our results show that major non-pharmaceutical interventions, and lockdown in particular, have had a large effect on reducing transmission,” the authors said in the study, published in Nature Research. “Continued intervention should be considered to keep transmission of Sars-CoV-2 under control.”
The researchers estimated that cumulatively between 12 and 15 million people had been infected in the period – or between 3.2 and 4 per cent of the population of the 11 nations. This fluctuated significantly between countries, with only 710,000 people in Germany thought to have caught the virus, or 0.85 per cent of the population.
