Timing of non-pharmaceutical interventions to mitigate COVID-19 transmission and their effects on mobility: a cross-country analysis

  1. Amit Summan
  2. Arindam Nandi

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Abstract

In the early stages of a pandemic, non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) that encourage physical distancing and reduce contact can decrease and delay disease transmission. Although NPIs have been implemented globally during the COVID-19 pandemic, their intensity and timing have varied widely. This paper analyzed the country-level determinants and effects of NPIs during the early stages of the pandemic (January 1st to April 29th, 2020). We examined countries that had implemented NPIs within 30 or 45 days since first case detection, as well as countries in which 30 or 45 days had passed since first case detection. The health and socioeconomic factors associated with delay in implementation of three NPIs—national school closure, national lockdown, and global travel ban—were analyzed using fractional logit and probit models, and beta regression models. The probability of implementation of national school closure, national lockdown, and strict national lockdown by a country was analyzed using a probit model. The effects of these three interventions on mobility changes were analyzed with propensity score matching methods using Google’s social mobility reports. Countries with larger populations and better health preparedness measures had greater delays in implementation. Countries with greater population density, higher income, more democratic political systems, and later arrival of first cases were more likely to implement NPIs within 30 or 45 days of first case detection. Implementation of lockdowns significantly reduced physical mobility. Mobility was further reduced when lockdowns were enforced with curfews or fines, or when they were more strictly defined. National school closures did not significantly change mobility.

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  1. Version published to 10.1007/s10198-021-01355-4
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.09.20096420: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Google identifies six location types for which mobility data is tracked: retail and recreation, grocery and pharmacy, parks, transit stations, workplaces, and residential.
    Google
    suggested: (Google, RRID:SCR_017097)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    There are a number of important limitations to our study. First, there may be data censoring issues to consider. We only focused on countries that had either implemented policies within 30 or 45 days, or had at least 30 or 45 days pass since their first case as of May 1st, the last day we collected NPI data. For the latest day of data available on NPI implementation only five countries which included four island nations and one conflict area had not passed 30 days since first case detection. The country with the latest first case detection of these countries had 24 days pass since their first case. When we considered countries that had that reached their 45th day since first case exposure, 42 countries were excluded, 22 of which had 40 to 44 days pass since their first case was detected, the majority of them being small island nations, followed by poorer African nations, and conflict areas. For many of these countries there was a lack of control variable data. Furthermore, our results showed that countries that had a later first case detection rate were more likely to implement NPIs. It is important to acknowledge the absence of these countries in our analysis, particularly for outcome variables where we considered policy implementation within 45 days. However, given the lack of control variable data on these countries and the unique country characteristics that may make these countries outliers in their response and the effects of the pandemic on them, we did not consider mo...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a protocol registration statement.

    About SciScore

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.09.20096420 on medRxiv