- 09 Ιαν 2021, 22:00
#685325
Effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19:
A Tale of Three ModelsVincent Chin, John P.A. Ioannidis, Martin A. Tanner and Sally Cripps
AbstractObjective: To compare the inference regarding the effectiveness of the various non-pharmaceutical
interventions (NPIs) for COVID-19 obtained from different SIR models.
Study design and setting: We explored two models developed by Imperial College that
considered only NPIs without accounting for mobility (model 1) or only mobility (model
2), and a model accounting for the combination of mobility and NPIs (model 3). Imperial
College applied models 1 and 2 to 11 European countries and to the USA, respectively.
We applied these models to 14 European countries (original 11 plus another 3), over two
different time horizons.
Results: While model 1 found that lockdown was the most effective measure in the original
11 countries, model 2 showed that lockdown had little or no benefit as it was typically introduced at a point when the time-varying reproductive number was already very low. Model
3 found that the simple banning of public events was beneficial, while lockdown had no
consistent impact. Based on Bayesian metrics, model 2 was better supported by the data
than either model 1 or model 3 for both time horizons.
Conclusions: Inferences on effects of NPIs are non-robust and highly sensitive to model
specification. Claimed benefits of lockdown appear grossly exaggerated.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... gfb_6nOSIY