- Countries around the world turned to lockdowns to help stop the spread of COVID-19.
- While lockdowns may not be 100 percent effective, studies show that they do help greatly reduce the transmission of the coronavirus.
- However, studies also show that those who are able to participate in lockdowns benefit more from them than those who have to work in high-risk environments.
While countries around the world turn to lockdowns to help stop the spread of COVID-19, some people question the method’s effectiveness and even forgo the facts to spread misinformation.
For instance, a New York Post article misrepresented data from a UCSF study, in which the senior author of the paper Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, professor and chair of the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF, stated, “The early shutdown worked for California. Mortality rates that were rising early in the pandemic dropped substantially in a timeframe that coincides with the shutdown. But, importantly, not all Californians seemed to benefit.”
Bibbins-Domingo goes on to discuss that nearly 20,000 more Californians died in the first 6 months of the pandemic than would have been expected to die in a typical year, with a disproportionate number of those deaths occurring among older adults, Black or Latino residents, or those who had not completed high school.
The study shows that those who are able to participate in lockdowns benefit more from them than those who have to work in high-risk environments.
However, the New York Post article misinterprets this information to mean lockdowns do not work.
They do.
Dr. Bruce E. Hirsch, attending physician and assistant professor in the infectious disease division of Northwell Health in New York, says while lockdowns will never be 100 percent effective in eliminating the risk of exposure to COVID-19 because people have to grocery shop and care for people in need, that doesn’t mean they are pointless.
“The critics can point out the limitations to lockdowns and say, ‘See the lockdown isn’t perfect and the vaccine isn’t 100 percent effective.’ While they are correct, they are missing what’s important, which is that public health measures all reinforce each other and help reduce the risk of exposure to COVID-19 by a lot,” Hirsch told Healthline.
Source: healthline