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Strict COVID-19 lockdowns had no clear benefit over voluntary social distancing measures: Study (washingtonexaminer.com)

 

Strict COVID-19 lockdowns had no clear benefit over voluntary social distancing measures: Study

A new study concluded that mandatory lockdowns imposed to slow the spread of the coronavirus did not provide more benefits than voluntary measures such as social distancing.

The peer-reviewed study, conducted by Stanford University researchers, analyzed the coronavirus case growth in 10 countries in early 2020 and showed there was "no clear, significant beneficial effect of [more restrictive measures] on case growth in any country,” according to Newsweek.

The study compared countries that enforced mandatory lockdowns, such as England and Italy, with countries that focused on voluntary responses, such as South Korea and Sweden.

A mathematical model was used by researchers who subtracted the "the sum of non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) effects and epidemic dynamics in countries that did not enact more restrictive non-pharmaceutical interventions (mrNPIs) from the sum of NPI effects and epidemic dynamics in countries that did."

"We do not question the role of all public health interventions, or of coordinated communications about the epidemic, but we fail to find an additional benefit of stay-at-home orders and business closures," the research stated.

The study comes on the heels of several other studies that have suggested lockdowns did not slow the spread of the coronavirus and potentially caused more damage than they prevented.