Longer periods of social distancing alone won't be sufficient: study
A report reveals that longer periods of social distancing alone are not sufficient when it comes to slowing Covid-19 spread. Rajan Chakrabarty, co-author of the study from Washington University in St Louis, said, “Conventional wisdom was, the more intense and long-term the social distancing, the more you will curb the disease spread.” The study, published in the journal Chaos, says any strategy that involves social distancing requires other steps be taken in tandem.
“But that is true if you have social distancing implemented with contact tracing, isolation and testing. Without those, you will give rise to a second wave,” Chakrabarty said. Another co-author, Payton Beeler noted that if social distancing is the only measure taken, it must be implemented extremely carefully in order for its benefits to be fully realised.
The study used data gathered by Johns Hopkins University between March 18 and 29. Calibrating the model using these data sets allowed the authors to analyse unbiased results that had not yet been affected by large-scale distancing in place. “Had social distancing been implemented earlier, we probably would’ve done a better job,” Chakrabarty said.
The scientists said that over the short-term, more distancing and less hospital demand go hand in hand, adding that this is only up to two weeks. The time spent distancing does not benefit hospital demand after that. The authors of the study said if social distancing “alone” is to be implemented longer than two weeks, a moderate shut down of somewhere between 50-70 per cent, could be more effective for the society than a stricter complete shut-down in yielding the largest reduction in medical demands.
