As states reopen and large protests sweep through many American cities, a new study suggests that if COVID-19 cases surge again, communities can shorten outbreaks by quickly enforcing social distancing measures.
An international team of researchers looked at 58 Chinese cities and found that each day a city delayed social distancing prolonged its outbreak by almost two and a half days.
An outbreak was considered "contained" when officials could say, with 95% certainty, that the number of people infected by the average COVID-19 patient had fallen below one. The study found that Chinese cities were able to contain their outbreaks within an average of eight days of adopting social distancing measures.
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"I think our findings will be broadly applicable to cities around the world," said Spencer Fox, one of the study's authors and associate director of the UT COVID-19 Modeling Consortium based at University of Texas at Austin.
The group's findings, slated to appear in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, could prove timely if cities experience a wave of new cases after this week's large demonstrations. Crowds have filled the streets of numerous cities to protest the killing of an African American man in Minneapolis by a white police officer.
"When you have large mass gatherings with very close contact between people, we are definitely concerned about the potential for flareups of the disease," Fox said.
"We're all worried about it," said Jeff Pothof, chief quality and safety officer for UW Health in Madison.
Pothof pointed to the parade Philadelphia held in the midst of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic as a cautionary example.
The parade, held on Sept. 28, 1918, to boost morale during World War I, drew an estimated 200,000 people to the streets just nine days after the city had reported its first Spanish flu cases. Within five days of the parade, every bed in the city's 31 hospitals was filled; within two weeks the city reported about 4,500 flu deaths.
A century later, the new study shows that U.S. cities now face a balancing act.
Pothof said the public's fear and uncertainty at the beginning of the pandemic likely increased compliance with social distancing measures and stay-at-home orders.
"I feel like that's starting to erode a little bit," Pothof said.
Because some of the worst-case scenarios did not come to pass, some people may view the lower numbers as proof that social distancing measures were excessive. Health officials, however, look at the same numbers and see proof that the strict measures worked.
"What we've learned is that the earlier you intervene, the more effective your interventions," Pothof said. "If you wait until everyone knows someone who is in the hospital, you will miss your window."
Laura Cassidy, a professor and director of the epidemiology division at the Medical College of Wisconsin, called the new study's findings "important and not necessarily surprising."
She pointed out that in mid-March, each Milwaukee resident infected with the new coronavirus was spreading it to an average of about five other people. The number of cases in the city was doubling every five days or so.
In the last month, however, the average number of people infected by a COVID-19 patient "has been hovering around one," Cassidy said.
She stressed the importance of communities developing systems to monitor changes in case numbers as government relaxes social distancing measures.
"We've learned so much over the last several months," Cassidy said. "The social distancing worked. We need to continue to be vigilant."
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If COVID-19 cases surge again, quickly implementing social distancing steps will ease outbreaks, study finds - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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