05/21/2020

Had Social Distancing Started a Week Earlier, 36,000 Lives Could Have Been Saved

This finding is the result of a new study

On March 8, it was mostly business as usual in the United States. As the Lakers faced the Clippers in a much-anticipated Los Angeles basketball match-up, Sen. Bernie Sanders rallied before a packed crowd in Michigan. In Miami, thousands squeezed onto the beach fo a massive dance party. With 500 coronavirus (COVID-19) infections reported nationwide at the time, many Americans saw the outbreak as a distant threat.

But by the following Sunday, the nation had entered a different universe: 2,000 confirmed cases, dozens of deaths, and shutdown orders in Ohio, Illinois and New York City, among other parts of the country.

What if those sweeping measures imposed by March 15 — a federal warning against large gatherings, health screenings at airports, states of emergency declared by governors and mayors — had been announced a week earlier? New research from Columbia University epidemiologists offered one possible answer on Wednesday. If the same kind of social distancing had been in place seven days earlier, their study found, the United States could have prevented 36,000 deaths through early May — about 40 percent of fatalities reported to date.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.