A new study suggests that a cycle of 50 days under strict lockdown — followed by 30 days of loosened restrictions — could help countries to reduce coronavirus deaths while keeping economies afloat.
The European Union-backed study modeled several different lockdown and reopening strategies in 16 countries across Africa, South and West Asia, Australia, Western Europe, North America and South America, according to researchers at the University of Cambridge.
The US was not included in the study, which was published in the European Journal of Epidemiology.
The researchers came to the conclusion that if countries used the 50-30 cycle, the reproduction rate of the virus — a figure that represents how many people one infected person can transmit the virus to — would fall 0.5, according to the report.
Additionally, ICU demand would stabilize at a level that each of the countries could handle, the study found.
Under that model, COVID-19 deaths across all 16 countries studied would fall around 130,000 — though the pandemic period would be extended beyond 18 months in all nations, the researchers found.
“This intermittent combination of strict social distancing, and a relatively relaxed period, with efficient testing, case isolation, contact tracing and shielding the vulnerable, may allow populations and their national economies to ‘breathe’ at intervals — a potential that might make this solution more sustainable, especially in resource-poor regions,” said Dr. Rajiv Chowdhury, a global health epidemiologist at the UK’s University of Cambridge.
Other models examined by the researchers proved ineffective, the study found.
One of them, a complete reopening, would lead to a whopping 7.8 million deaths in just those 16 countries.
Another plan involved 50 days of mitigation measures — which are not strict lockdowns — followed by 30 days of loosened restrictions.
That strategy would work for the first three months, but the study found it would ultimately result in 3.5 million deaths in those 16 countries and the pandemic could last for 12 to 18 months.
New coronavirus cases would fall to zero if the countries opted for three straight months of strict lockdowns, or looser mitigation rules lasting more than six months.
But the economic cost is too high, they found.
“Countries — particularly low-income countries — will have to weigh up the dilemma of preventing COVID-19 related deaths and public health system failure with the long-term economic collapse and hardship,” said Professor Oscar Franco from Switzerland’s University of Bern.