As the Novel Coronavirus continues to rage around the world claiming more and more lives each day and crushing the global economy, scientists and researchers are trying to contain the pandemic by simulating various lockdown scenarios for different countries. In a similar scenario simulation for an EU-backed study, researchers have proposed a new lockdown format that might be the best shot we have surviving this bizarre and dangerous time.
Now, for the aforementioned EU-backed study, researchers and scientists from 9 different countries came together to finalise the next step to attempt to contain the ongoing pandemic. The group simulated different scenarios for various lockdown strategies taking 16 countries into account.
In the first case, the scientists did not impose any lockdown measures or social distancing norms in the 16 countries. This, obviously, resulted in a massive increase in patients needing treatment in ICUs, much more than any country’s capacity. Finally, this simulation resulted in 7.8 million deaths and the pandemic lasting for over 200 days in most of the countries.
In the second scenario, the group tried with a 50-days of “mitigation measures” and then 30-days of those measures being relaxed. The “mitigation measures” included restrictions on public gatherings, hygiene rules, and isolating individuals with the virus. However, it was not a total lockdown scenario. So, this simulation resulted in a decrease of the R-Naught (R0) of the virus, which is the rate of reproduction of the virus, to 0.8. However, there were still more ICU patients than any country could handle. This simulation resulted in 3.5 million deaths with the pandemic lasting for 12 months for developed countries and 18 months for the under-developed ones.
Now, in the third and the final simulation, the researchers applied the same 50-days lockdown and 30-days relaxation method. However, this time they implemented strict “suppression measures” during the 50-days period. The “suppression measures” were described as those that involved stringent lockdown measures and those that led to a rapid reduction rate in new infections.
In this final case, the scientists were able to achieve the lowest R0 for the virus, which is 0.5, with much fewer death tolls for the countries. However, with this format also, the pandemic lasted for almost 18 months for all the countries.
At the moment, the global economy is falling by the seconds due to the Novel Coronavirus. According to the IMF, the world is heading towards the biggest recession since the 1930s and they predict that the global economy will fall by 3% by the end of this apocalyptic year.
