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These days, Sweden and Europe are starting to vaccinate their citizens against the coronavirus. But it will be many weeks before the vaccine has a sufficient effect on the spread of the infection in society.
While we wait for more people to be vaccinated, we are referring to roughly the same kinds of measures to protect ourselves from infection that communities have used for many hundreds of years.
Closing universities, closing shops, quarantining people, putting cones or masks in front of their faces – it happened during plague epidemics as early as the Renaissance and the Middle Ages.
For example, Isaac Newton made several of his most important discoveries about the laws of physics in the 1660s when he applied physical isolation at his home on the Woolsthorpe farm when the University of Cambridge had closed.
And the 14th-century Decamerone book is about young people who escape the plague of Florence and are quarantined.
At all times Decision-makers have stepped onto unfamiliar ground when introducing epidemic measures.
This also applies to the highest grade of covid-19.
But the more time passes, the more data there is to base evaluations on.
A few weeks ago, for example, a large study appeared in Nature, based on 98 million American mobile phone users, which DN has previously written about. It turned out that restaurants spread the infection four times worse than the next category, which is the gym.
And a few weeks ago, the Jama open network published a so-called meta-analysis, a compilation of existing research. It shows that a large part of the spread of infection occurs in households between family members. Children are less likely to become infected and spread the infection than adults, and people who are supposedly asymptomatic (carriers of the virus without their own symptoms) are infected in only 0.7% of cases.
This week published Science magazine a study in which a research group, led by Jan Brauner of the University of Oxford, has tried to calculate which measures have been most effective so far. Researchers have compared countries that have introduced different measures at different times.
Closure of universities and colleges (which was done in Cambridge as early as the time of Isaac Newton in the 17th century) appears to be a very good idea, according to the new study.
Most countries, with the exception of Sweden and Iceland, have also closed schools for younger ages. The study in Science cannot determine if it did well too. What we do know by now, however, is that children under the age of twelve are infected and transmit the infection to a lesser extent than adults, and that closed schools have significant consequences for children and their parents.
To limit crowds Up to a maximum of ten people has also been effective, shows Jan Brauner and his co-authors, in addition to closing “face-to-face deals.”
The Science study does not analyze which “face-to-face businesses” are most sensitive. But the previous large study on American cell phones in Nature points to restaurants with table service and alcohol that are less contagious than, for example, gyms, grocery stores, care visits and various types of specialty stores.
Ordering people to stay home, on the other hand, has little additional effect, the new Science study shows.
This is the data type We need for opinions, shifting forecasts, industry interests and speculation not to take over.
And when it comes to mortality rates, let’s look at Euromomo statistics that compare excess mortality over time in a large number of European countries. Don’t jump to conclusions from individual death figures from one day to the next.
The year 2020 is ending soon. The pandemic, on the other hand, will last for a while. Now is the time to persevere and manage the corona virus as efficiently and scientifically as ever.
Read more: Karin Bojs: Many methods against coronavirus are from the Middle Ages
Read more: Karin Bojs: Reality data shows how covid-19 spreads
