With one third of the world population under lockdown, people must be feeling already exasperated about when will it end. The question is being asked now when will it end. But a recent research says that lockdown should last for at least 44 days to make a good impact.
The study involved 36 countries and 50 U.S. states and was co-authored by Prof. Gerard Tellis of USC Marshall School of Business, Professor Ashish Sood of UC Riverside’s A. Gary Anderson Graduate School of Management, and Nitish Sood, a student at Augusta University studying Cellular & Molecular Biology.
“Counts of total or new cases can be misleading and difficult to compare across countries,” Professor Tellis said. “Growth rate and Time to double are critical metrics for an accurate understanding of how this disease is spreading.”
Based on the studies, they suggested that once aggressive interventions are in place, large countries take almost three weeks to see moderation, one month to get control, and 45 days to achieve containment. With less aggressive intervention, it can take much longer. Important differences exist by size of country. Public health administrators should note larger countries take longer to see moderation.
The authors defined aggressive intervention as lockdowns, stay-at-home orders, mass testing and quarantines.
“Singapore and South Korea adopted the path of massive test and quarantine, which seems to be the only successful alternative to costly lockdowns and stay-at-home orders,” Nitish Sood said.
“Even though huge differences exist among countries, it’s striking to see so many similarities from aggressive intervention to moderation, control, and containment of the spread of the disease,” Professor Sood said.
