TY - JOUR
T1 - Understanding the effectiveness of government interventions against the resurgence of COVID-19 in Europe
AU - Sharma, Mrinank
AU - Mindermann, Soren
AU - Rogers-Smith, Charlie
AU - Leech, Gavin
AU - Snodin, Benedict
AU - Ahuja, Janvi
AU - Sandbrink, Jonas B.
AU - Monrad, Joshua Teperowski
AU - Altman, George
AU - Dhaliwal, Gurpreet
AU - Finnveden, Lukas
AU - Norman, Alexander John
AU - Oehm, Sebastian B.
AU - Sandkuehler, Julia Fabienne
AU - Aitchison, Laurence
AU - Gavenciak, Tomas
AU - Mellan, Thomas
AU - Kulveit, Jan
AU - Chindelevitch, Leonid
AU - Flaxman, Seth
AU - Gal, Yarin
AU - Mishra, Swapnil
AU - Bhatt, Samir
AU - Brauner, Jan Markus
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - European governments control resurging waves of COVID-19 using nonpharmaceutical interventions. Here, the authors estimate the effectiveness of 17 interventions in Europe's second wave, and analyse differences to the first wave as well as implications for the future of the pandemic.European governments use non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to control resurging waves of COVID-19. However, they only have outdated estimates for how effective individual NPIs were in the first wave. We estimate the effectiveness of 17 NPIs in Europe's second wave from subnational case and death data by introducing a flexible hierarchical Bayesian transmission model and collecting the largest dataset of NPI implementation dates across Europe. Business closures, educational institution closures, and gathering bans reduced transmission, but reduced it less than they did in the first wave. This difference is likely due to organisational safety measures and individual protective behaviours-such as distancing-which made various areas of public life safer and thereby reduced the effect of closing them. Specifically, we find smaller effects for closing educational institutions, suggesting that stringent safety measures made schools safer compared to the first wave. Second-wave estimates outperform previous estimates at predicting transmission in Europe's third wave.
AB - European governments control resurging waves of COVID-19 using nonpharmaceutical interventions. Here, the authors estimate the effectiveness of 17 interventions in Europe's second wave, and analyse differences to the first wave as well as implications for the future of the pandemic.European governments use non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to control resurging waves of COVID-19. However, they only have outdated estimates for how effective individual NPIs were in the first wave. We estimate the effectiveness of 17 NPIs in Europe's second wave from subnational case and death data by introducing a flexible hierarchical Bayesian transmission model and collecting the largest dataset of NPI implementation dates across Europe. Business closures, educational institution closures, and gathering bans reduced transmission, but reduced it less than they did in the first wave. This difference is likely due to organisational safety measures and individual protective behaviours-such as distancing-which made various areas of public life safer and thereby reduced the effect of closing them. Specifically, we find smaller effects for closing educational institutions, suggesting that stringent safety measures made schools safer compared to the first wave. Second-wave estimates outperform previous estimates at predicting transmission in Europe's third wave.
KW - MODEL
U2 - 10.1038/s41467-021-26013-4
DO - 10.1038/s41467-021-26013-4
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 34611158
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 12
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
IS - 1
M1 - 5820
ER -