Public health officials’ efforts to protect citizens from COVID-19 infection and avert death may have backfired, a new study published in Health Economics suggests. What’s more, the efforts could be linked to excess deaths.
Mandatory masking and social distancing became everyday directives for millions worldwide when the COVID-19 virus exploded onto the scene in 2020. Shelter-in-place (SIP) or stay-at-home orders quickly followed despite evidence supporting the protocol remaining mixed.
Now, a cross-collaborative team of scientists from California, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts is expressing confidence based on results from rigorous research examining whether stay-at-home orders may not have been as effective as health officials initially hoped. In fact, they may have resulted in both short- and long-term health consequences.
SIP Policies Did Not Reduce Excess Deaths
After examining SIP protocols from dozens of countries, researchers determined that restricting people from leaving their homes did not reduce excess mortality. The protocols may have also contributed to excess “deaths of despair” unrelated to the virus but to social and economic isolation effects.
To measure policy impacts, researchers took a deep dive into data using the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker. The resource allowed them to extract daily information at both country and U.S. state levels, but they averaged the data to create a weekly value before and after restrictions were put in place.
Specifically, the researchers looked at data from 43 countries and all 50 U.S. states and examined weekly death rates leading up to the restrictions for the years 2015–2019. They then compared these to weekly rates in 2020 after community mitigation strategies were implemented for 25 weeks. Data were assessed with the first data point marked by the first COVID-19 death in each region. Researchers also looked at how long it took states and countries to implement restrictions after the first death.
Deaths due to COVID-19 and all other unrelated causes of death were calculated using incidence rates for both the U.S. states and the 43 countries and compared to regions that did not enforce stay-at-home orders.
By Mary Gillis
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