Allow Cookies!
By using our website, you agree to the use of cookies
When the novel coronavirus hit Wuhan, China in December of 2019, schools and workplaces were closed due to Lunar New Year holidays. These holidays were further extended in order to maintain social distancing, as a prevention. China has witnessed the most number of COVID-19 cases, given the fact that the virus gained its origin in Wuhan but lately, the rate of increasingly affected people forms a downward slope after hitting peak about a week ago. The current number of active cases is at 437,274 while 160,798 have recovered.
A research published in The Lancet Public Health journal says the lockdown and closure of schools and workplaces in Wuhan helped reduce rapid proliferation of the virus, which gave time for recovery to already affected people and substantially elongated the epidemic peak. However, researchers from London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in the UK used mathematical modelling to suggest that by lifting these control measures prematurely as early as March would cause a second wave of cases by the late August and maintaining the current status of lockdown until April would delay and flatten a second peak until October, relieving pressure on the health department in the intervening months. The researchers developed a transmission model in order to quantify the impact of the lockdown using information about how often people of different ages interact with one another. They used this information to assess the effect of these measures.
Using data taken from these measures, the scientists compared its effect on three different scenarios- in the first scenario, no holidays or government interventions were in place; in the second, no social distancing measures were taken but there Lunar Holidays were in place without an extension; in the third, they modelled intense control measures with only 10 percent of the workforce consisting of essential staff working to enforce control measures. They also researched on the impact of lifting control measures at different points of the lockdown in April and May. Their research suggested that the third scenario would reduce the size of the epidemic peak, while also delaying it.
Co-author Yang Liu from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine stated:
"Our results won't look exactly the same in another country, because the population structure and the way people mix will be different, but we think one thing probably applies everywhere: physical distancing measures are very useful, and we need to carefully adjust their lifting to avoid subsequent waves of infection when workers and school children return to their normal routine.”
They further stated that the research has not taken into consideration the increased transmission within households as a result to extreme measures and assumed no difference in susceptibility between children.
The mass lockdown in Wuhan which was brought into place in late January is expected to be lifted on April 8th, 2020 as of now. Officials having been lifting restrictions throughout the surrounding Hubei province.
86540
103860
630
114
59824