Getty Health workers dressed in personal protective equipment (PPE) handle a coronavirus test at a drive-thru testing station at Cummings Park on March 23, 2020 in Stamford, Connecticut.
A new study claims that three self-imposed behaviors could stop most of the coronavirus pandemic, regardless of a vaccine or additional treatments.
The study, published Tuesday in the journal PLoS Medicine, established a new model to track the virus’ trajectory and potential prevention measures . So far, 3,640,835 COVID-19 cases haven been confirmed worldwide since December 31, 2019 and nearly 255,100 deaths, the study claims.
Researchers discovered that regular hand washing, social distancing and face masks “can prevent a large epidemic if their efficacy exceeds 50%,” according to the study.
“The aim of this study was to compare the individual and combined effectiveness of self-imposed prevention measures and of short-term government-imposed social distancing in mitigating, delaying, or preventing a COVID-19 epidemic,” the study reads.
Although the study’s contact rates were based on data from the Netherlands, the model is still “appropriate” for Western countries, the researchers at the University Medical Center Utrecht said.
Short-term government-imposed social distancing at an early stage of the pandemic can also buy “at most 7 months for a 3-month intervention” for hospitals to prepare for a spike in patients.
Even if the public has a slow-but-eventual response to the pandemic, the study notes, it can still lower the number of cases. It won’t have have an effect on preventing a peak, the study continued.
Researchers said early-government shutdowns will not be effective in reducing a peak if individuals do not take proper personal protective measures.
They encouraged governments to educate the public about the importance of self-distancing, hand washing and wearing a face mask.
“We stress the importance of disease awareness in controlling the ongoing epidemic and recommend that, in addition to policies on social distancing, governments and public health institutions mobilize people to adopt self-imposed measures with proven efficacy in order to successfully tackle COVID-19,” the authors wrote.
On the other hand, it cautioned officials to also consider how they disseminate their information.
The study acknowledged that communities could see a second wave of infections as a result of people “prematurely” relaxing.
“The secondary epidemic waves may appear as the result of individuals relaxing adherence to self-imposed measures prematurely in a population where the susceptible pool following the first wave is still significantly large and disease has not been completely eliminated,” it reads.
The study has several limitations, according to the researchers.
The model did not take into account stochasticity, demographics, heterogeneities in contact patterns, spatial effects, inhomogeneous mixing, imperfect isolation of individuals with severe disease or reinfection with COVID-19, the study stated.
The Study was Released Less Than a Week After the White House Ordered Hospitals to Bypass the CDC
GettyU.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a press briefing about coronavirus testing in the Rose Garden of the White House on May 11, 2020 in Washington, DC.
The New York Times reported that the Trump administration ordered hospitals to send all coronavirus patient data to a central database in Washington instead of the CDC.
The announcement was posted on the Department of Health and Human Services website last Wednesday. It said the department will be gathering information on the patients in each hospital, as well as the number of open beds and ventilators, among other things, the Times said.
The Health and Human Services database will not be available to the public, NYT added.
President Donald Trump noted during a Tuesday press briefing that the pandemic will “get worse before it gets better,” Fox News said.
“It will get worse before it gets better,” he said, according to the outlet.“That’s something I don’t like saying but it is… As one family, we mourn every precious life that’s been lost. I pledge in their honor that we will develop a vaccine and we will defeat the virus.”
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