Estimating the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in Europe
Authors: Ben Jeffrey
Harrison Zhu
Neil M Ferguson
Gina Cuomo-Dannenburg
Michaela A C Vollmer
Steven Riley
Erik Volz
Kris V Parag
Charles Whittaker
William D Green
Lorenzo Cattarino
Tresnia Berah
Peter Winskill
Pierre Nouvellet
Wes Hinsley
Richard G FitzJohn
Christl A Donnelly
Amy Dighe
Axel Gandy
M√©lodie Monod
Zulma Cucunub√°
Lily Geidelberg
Katy A M Gaythorpe
Edward Knock
Robert Verity
Haowei Wang
Arran Hamlet
Caroline E Walters
Nora Schmit
Azra C Ghani
Pablo N Perez-Guzman
Olivia Boyd
Helen Coupland
Kylie E C Ainslie
Lucy C Okell
Hayley A Thompson
Laura V Cooper
Adhiratha Boonyasiri
Igor Siveroni
Ilaria Dorigatti
Bimandra Djaafara
Jeffrey W Eaton
Samir Bhatt
Marc Baguelin
Nicholas C Grassly
Lucia Cilloni
H Juliette T Unwin
Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team
Seth Flaxman
Daniel J Laydon
Timothy Hallett
Oliver J Watson
Sabine L van Elsland
Gemma Nedjati-Gilani
Xiaoyue Xi
Thomas A Mellan
Swapnil Mishra
Patrick G T Walker
Yuanrong Wang
Journal: Nature (2020)
Discipline: Multidisciplinary
Keywords: coronavirus; COVID-19; Europe; interventions; lockdowns
Affiliations: Department of Mathematics, Imperial College London, London, UK., MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics, Imperial College London, London, UK., Department of Statistics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK., MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics, Imperial College London, London, UK. .

Abstract:  Following the detection of the new coronavirus1 severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and its spread outside of China, Europe has experienced large epidemics of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In response, many European countries have implemented non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as the closure of schools and national lockdowns. Here we study the effect of major interventions across 11 European countries for the period from the start of the COVID-19 epidemics in February 2020 until 4 May 2020, when lockdowns started to be lifted. Our model calculates backwards from observed deaths to estimate transmission that occurred several weeks previously, allowing for the time lag between infection and death. We use partial pooling of information between countries, with both individual and shared effects on the time-varying reproduction number (Rt). Pooling allows for more information to be used, helps to overcome idiosyncrasies in the data and enables more-timely estimates. Our model relies on fixed estimates of some epidemiological parameters (such as the infection fatality rate), does not include importation or subnational variation and assumes that changes in Rt are an immediate response to interventions rather than gradual changes in behaviour. Amidst the ongoing pandemic, we rely on death data that are incomplete, show systematic biases in reporting and are subject to future consolidation. We estimate that-for all of the countries we consider here-current interventions have been sufficient to drive Rt below 1 (probability Rt &lt; 1.0 is greater than 99%) and achieve control of the epidemic. We estimate that across all 11 countries combined, between 12 and 15 million individuals were infected with SARS-CoV-2 up to 4 May 2020, representing between 3.2% and 4.0% of the population. Our results show that major non-pharmaceutical interventions-and lockdowns in particular-have had a large effect on reducing transmission. Continued intervention should be considered to keep transmission of SARS-CoV-2 under control. 

Retracted: No

PubPeer comments:
 Figure 3B. Much more similar and different than expected. https: imgur.com QzzqaKW ,