Clinical Public Health, China
development

Period. 23 - 29 March 2020

Imperial College London: Evidence of initial success for China exiting COVID-19 social distancing policy after achieving containment (Ainslie et al. 2020)

Findings

Estimated transmissibility from reported cases and compare those with daily data on within-city movement as a proxy for economic activity in order to determine the public health and socio-economic impact of imposing and relaxing social distancing measures by China to control COVID-19. The results suggest that after very intense social distancing which resulted in containment, China has successfully exited their stringent social distancing policy to some degree.

Interpretation

China is at a more advanced stage of the pandemic globally. While the results do not preclude future epidemics in China, the policies implemented to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and the exiting strategies that followed can inform decision making processes for countries once containment is achieved.

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