Social distancing could reduce spread of coronavirus by 65 per cent: Study

Social distancing for merely two weeks could curb the coronavirus by 65 per cent globally, a new study has found. The study released on July 30, by Texas researchers, compared two states for their lockdown policies As a result, they found that countries which implemented social distancing saw the lesser spread of COVID-19  as compared to states without such policies.

“We found that states observed significant reductions in transmission rates following the implementation of social distancing policies, compared to states without such policies,” Daniel McGrail, a postdoctoral fellow studying systems biology, said in a statement.

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For the purpose of study, the team at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centre compared two states Nebraska and Idaho with the latter having a distancing policy and former lacking one. The study found out lesser COVID-19 cases in Idaho as compared to Nebraska. In addition, it also found that South Dakota, whose governor also resisted a statewide policy, also saw little to no reduction in cases. Meanwhile, Wyoming lacked a social distancing policy and the sparsely populated state came in fifteenth from the bottom out of 50 states in terms of reducing coronavirus spread. 

Expansion to global level

“While analysis of US states indicated that social distancing policies reduced Covid-19 spread rates proportional to associated reductions in mobility, only having three states without social distancing policies reduces the power of any observation. To address this, we next expanded our model to the global level, “ the scientists concluded.

They then analysed data from 134 different nations and found that social distancing policy “significantly secured” coronavirus spread. “Socia distancing can result in an estimated 65% reduction in new Covid-19 cases over a two week time period,” the researchers wrote. However the concluded that Social distancing is not necessarily the only way to reduce spread, another method like contact tracing could also work.

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Image credits: twitter.com/BenWinterburn