Ranking Effectiveness of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions Against COVID-19: A Review
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31449/inf.v46i4.4181Abstract
In this review, we examine 34 studies based on experimental data that estimate and compare the effectiveness of 12 non-pharmaceutical government interventions against Covid-19 based on cases, deaths, and/or transmission rates to assess their overall effectiveness. The studies reviewed are based on daily country-level data and cover 4 to 200 countries and regions worldwide with varying time intervals, spanning the period between December 2019 and August 2021. We found that the overall most effective interventions are restrictions on gatherings, workplace closing, public information campaigns, and school closing, while the least effective are close public transport, contact tracing, and testing policy.References
WHO COVID-19 Dashboard, Geneva: World Health Organization, https://covid19.who.int/. Accesed May 2022.
J. Tomšič, D. Susič, and M. Gams (2021). Effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions in handling the COVID-19 pandemic: review of related studies. In Proceedings of the 24th international multiconference Information Society - IS 2021, vol. D, pp. 46–51.
A. Mendez-Brito, C. El Bcheraoui, and F. Pozo-Martin (2021). Systematic review of empirical studies comparing the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions against COVID-19. Journal of Infection, vol. 83, no. 3, pp. 281–293, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2021.06.018.
I. Ayouni, J. Maatoug, W. Dhouib et al. (2021). Effective public health measures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19: a systematic review. BMC Public Health, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 10–15, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-11111-1.
J. Herby, L. Jonung, and S. H. Hanke (2022). A literature review and meta-analysis of the effects of lockdowns on COVID-19 mortality. Studies in Applied Economics, vol. 200.
T. Hale, N. Angrist, and R. Goldszmidt (2021). A global panel database of pandemic policies (Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker). Nature Human Behaviour, vol. 5, pp. 4, pp. 529–538, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2021.06.018.
Z. Niu and G. Scarciotti (2021). Ranking the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions to counter COVID-19 in UK universities with vaccinated population. medRxiv, https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.11.07.21266028.
H. H. Suh, J. Meehan, L. Blaisdell, and L. Browne (2021). Non-pharmaceutical interventions and COVID-19 cases in US summer camps: results from an American Camp Association survey. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, vol. 76, no. 4, pp. 327–334, https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2021-216711.
E. Bendavid, C. Oh, J. Bhattacharya, and J. P. A. Ioannidis (2021). Assessing mandatory stay-at-home and business closure effects on the spread of COVID-19. European Journal of Clinical Investigation, vol. 51, no. 4, article no. e13484, https://doi.org/10.1111/eci.13484.
Y. Li, H. Campbell, D. Kulkarni et al. (2021). The temporal association of introducing and lifting non-pharmaceutical interventions with the time-varying reproduction number (R) of SARS-CoV-2: a modelling study across 131 countries. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 193–202, https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30785-4.
Y. Liu, C. Morgenstern, J. Kelly et al. (2021). The impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions on SARS-CoV-2 transmission across 130 countries and territories. BMC medicine, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 1–12, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-020-01872-8.
P. D. Wibbens, W. W. Koo, and A. M. McGahan (2020). Which COVID policies are most effective? A Bayesian analysis of COVID-19 by jurisdiction. Plos one, vol. 15, no. 12, article no. e0244177, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244177.
P. Juni, M. Rothenbuhler, and P. Bobos et al. (2020). Impact of climate and public health interventions on the COVID-19 pandemic: a prospective cohort study. CMAJ, vol. 192, no. 21, pp. 566–573, https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.200920.
A. M. Jalali, S. G. Khoury, J. See et al. (2020). Delayed interventions, low compliance, and health disparities amplified the early spread of COVID-19. medRxiv, https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.31.20165654.
C. T. Leffler, E. Ing, J. D. Lykins et al. (2020). Association of country-wide coronavirus mortality with demographics, testing, lockdowns, and public wearing of masks. The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene, vol. 103, no. 6, pp. 2400–2411, https://doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.20-1015.
D. I. Papadopoulos, I. Donkov, K. Charitopoulos, and S. Bishara (2020). The impact of lockdown measures on COVID-19: a worldwide comparison. medRxiv, https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.22.20106476.
V. Chernozhukov, H. Kasahara, and P. Schrimpf (2021). Causal impact of masks, policies, behavior on early covid-19 pandemic in the U.S. Journal of Econometrics, vol. 220, no. 1, pp. 23–62, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeconom.2020.09.003.
P. Deb, D. Furceri, J. D. Ostry, and N. Tawk (2021). Policy interventions, social distancing, and SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the United States: a retrospective statelevel analysis. The American journal of the medical sciences, vol. 361, no. 5, pp. 575–584, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjms.2021.01.007.
S. Ebrahim, H. Ashworth, and C. Noah (2020). Reduction of COVID-19 incidence and nonpharmacologic interventions: Analysis using a US county–level policy data set. Journal of medical Internet research, vol. 22, no. 12, pp. 575–584, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjms.2021.01.007.
S. Flaxman, S. Mishra, A. Gandy et al. (2020). Estimating the effects of nonpharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in Europe. Nature, vol. 584, no. 7820, pp. 257–261, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2405-7.
P. R. Hunter, F. J. Colon-Gonzalez, J. Brainard, and S. Rushton (2021). Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions against COVID-19 in Europe in 2020: a quasiexperimental non-equivalent group and time series design study. Euro Surveill, vol. 26, no. 28, https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2021.26.28.2001401.
A. M. Olney, J. Smith, S. Sen et al. (2021). Estimating the effect of social distancing interventions on COVID-19 in the United States. American Journal of Epidemiology, vol. 190, no. 8, pp. 1504–1509, https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwaa293.
D. Piovani, M. N. Christodoulou, A. Hadjidemetriou et al. (2021). Effect of early application of social distancing interventions on COVID-19 mortality over the first pandemic wave: an analysis of longitudinal data from 37 countries. Journal of Infection, vol. 82, no. 1, pp. 133–142, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2020.11.033.
P. D. Wibbens, W. W. Koo, and A. M. McGahan (2020). Evaluation on different non-pharmaceutical interventions during COVID-19 pandemic: an analysis of 139 countries. J Infect, vol. 81, no. 3, pp. 70–71, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2020.06.
X. Zhang and M. E. Warner (2020). COVID-19 policy differences across US states: shutdowns, reopening, and mask mandates. Int J Environ Res Public Health, vol. 17, no. 24, article no. 9520, https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17249520.
N. Askitas, K. Tatsiramos, and B. Verheyden (2021). Estimating worldwide effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 incidence and population mobility patterns using a multiple-event study. Scientific reports, vol. 11, no. 1, article no. 1972, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-81442-x.
N. Banholzer, E. Van Weenen, A. Lison, A. Cenedese, A. Seeliger et al. (2021). Estimating the effects of nonpharmaceutical interventions on the number of new infections with COVID-19 during the first epidemic wave. PLOS ONE, vol. 16, no. 6, article no. e0252827, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252827.
R. Chaudhry et al. (2021). A country level analysis measuring the impact of government actions, country preparedness and socioeconomic factors on COVID-19 mortality and related health outcomes. eClinicalMedicine, vol 25, article no. 100464, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2020.100464.
P. Deb, D. Furceri, J. D. Ostry, and N. Tawk (2020). The effect of containment measures on the COVID-19 pandemic. Centre for Economic Policy Research.
N. Islam, S. Sharp, G. Chowell et al. (2020). Physical distancing interventions and incidence of coronavirus disease 2019: natural experiment in 149 countries. British Medical Journal, vol. 370, article no. m2743, https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m2743.
M. Sharma, S. Mindermann, C. Rogers-Smith et al. (2021). Understanding the effectiveness of government interventions against the resurgence of COVID-19 in Europe. Nature Communications, vol. 12, no. 1, article no. 5820, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-26013-4.
L. Y. Chan, B. Yuan, and M. Convertino (2021). COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical intervention portfolio effectiveness and risk communication predominance. Sci Rep, vol. 11, no. 1, article no. 10605, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-88309-1.
Y. Gokmen, C. Baskici, and Y. Ercil (2021). Effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions against COVID-19: A cross-country analysis. The International Journal of Health Planning and Management, vol. 36, no. 4, pp. 1178–1188, https://doi.org/10.1002/hpm.3164.
H. Li, L. Wang, M. Zhang, Y. Lu, and W. Wang (2022). Effects of vaccination and non-pharmaceutical interventions and their lag times on the COVID-19 pandemic: comparison of eight countries. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, vol. 16, no. 1, article no. e0010101, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0010101.
Y. Bo, C. Guo, C. Lin et al. (2021). Effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 transmission in 190 countries from 23 January to 13 April 2020. International Journal of Infectious Diseases, vol. 102, pp. 247–253, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2020.10.066.
J. M. Brauner, S. Mindermann, M. Sharma et al. (2021). Inferring the effectiveness of government interventions against COVID-19. Science, vol. 371, no. 6531, article no. eabd9338, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abd9338.
R. T. Esra, L. Jamesion, M. P. Fox et al. (2020). Evaluating the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions for SARS-CoV-2 on a global scale. medRxiv, https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.30.20164939.
N. Haug, L. Geyrhofer, A. Londei et al. (2020). Ranking the effectiveness of worldwide
COVID-19 government interventions. Nat Hum Behav, vol. 4, no. 12, pp. 1303–1312, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-01009-0.
W. C. Koh, L. Naing, J. Wong et al. (2020). Estimating the impact of physical distancing measures in containing COVID-19: an empirical analysis. International Journal of Infectious Diseases, vol. 100, pp. 42–49, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2020.08.026.
Y. Li, M. Li, M. Rice et al. (2021). The impact of policy measures on human mobility, COVID-19 cases, and mortality in the US: a spatiotemporal perspective. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, vol. 18, no. 3, article no. 996, https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18030996.
F. Pozo-Martin, H. Weishaar, F. Cristea et al. (2021). The impact of nonpharmaceutical
interventions on COVID-19 epidemic growth in the 37 OECD member states. European journal of epidemiology, vol. 82, no. 1, pp. 1–12, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2020.11.033.
J. Stokes, A. J. Turner, L. Anselmi et al. (2020). The relative effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on early Covid-19 mortality: natural experiment in 130 countries. medRxiv, https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.10.05.20206888.
F. Zhou, T. J. Hu, X. Y. Zhang et al. (2022). The association of intensity and duration of non-pharmacological interventions and implementation of vaccination with COVID-19 infection, death, and excess mortality: natural experiment in 22 European countries. Journal of Infection and Public Health, vol. 15, no. 5, pp. 499-507, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jiph.2022.03.011.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
I assign to Informatica, An International Journal of Computing and Informatics ("Journal") the copyright in the manuscript identified above and any additional material (figures, tables, illustrations, software or other information intended for publication) submitted as part of or as a supplement to the manuscript ("Paper") in all forms and media throughout the world, in all languages, for the full term of copyright, effective when and if the article is accepted for publication. This transfer includes the right to reproduce and/or to distribute the Paper to other journals or digital libraries in electronic and online forms and systems.
I understand that I retain the rights to use the pre-prints, off-prints, accepted manuscript and published journal Paper for personal use, scholarly purposes and internal institutional use.
In certain cases, I can ask for retaining the publishing rights of the Paper. The Journal can permit or deny the request for publishing rights, to which I fully agree.
I declare that the submitted Paper is original, has been written by the stated authors and has not been published elsewhere nor is currently being considered for publication by any other journal and will not be submitted for such review while under review by this Journal. The Paper contains no material that violates proprietary rights of any other person or entity. I have obtained written permission from copyright owners for any excerpts from copyrighted works that are included and have credited the sources in my article. I have informed the co-author(s) of the terms of this publishing agreement.
Copyright © Slovenian Society Informatika