COVID-19: Social distancing, drug trials offer hope
The number of COVID-19 cases all over the world has just passed 1 million, and it could seem as though this pandemic won't go away. It is vital to remember that, in their labs, scientists are making quiet progress every day - helping untangle the sources of this crisis and inching nearer to stopping it.
A couple of weeks ago, Medical News Today first rounded up emerging evidence that gave us reasons to be cautiously hopeful.
On this page, we continue the series by looking at the impact of social distancing measures, newly launched treatment trials, and hopes for a vaccine.
Social distancing measures work
A fresh study by Prof. Chaolong Wang and colleagues from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, in Wuhan, China, suggests that the social distancing measures implemented by Chinese officials prevented a lot more than 90% of possible infections between January 23 and February 18, 2020.
Prof. Wang and the team reached this conclusion after having developed a way of predicting virus transmission patterns by looking at population movement, unconfirmed cases, and people in quarantine.
The analysis also predicted that nearly 60% of the people carrying the virus had no symptoms and were not self-isolating. This may have contributed to the quick spread of the virus.
These findings are constant with those of other studies, such as one published in Eurosurveillance that viewed the spread of the virus on the Diamond Princess cruise liner.
Prof. Gerardo Chowell, a co-author of the study, highlights the value of social distancing as the only method to block the chain of contagion in the context of asymptomatic cases.
“Implementing strong social distancing measures may be the only way to stop the virus from spreading.”
- Prof. Gerardo Chowell, study co-author
Another study, led by Prof. Christopher Dye, from the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom, used large datasets to investigate the movements of millions of men and women therefore of the nationwide travel ban in China.
The travel ban was instated on January 23, 2020.
“Predicated on [these] data, we could also calculate the likely decrease in Wuhan-associated cases in other cities across China,” says study co-author Prof. Ottar Bjornstad, from Pennsylvania State University, in University Park.
The scientists considered the amount of cases right from the start of the outbreak until February 19, 2020, the 50th day because the outbreak’s start.
They also looked at the cases between January 23 and February 19, having accessed public health records and case reports of COVID-19.
During this time period, “Our analysis suggests that without the Wuhan travel ban and the national emergency response, there could have been a lot more than 700,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases outside of Wuhan,” says Prof. Dye.
Source: www.medicalnewstoday.com
