Department of Geography and GeoInformation Science, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA.
NSF Spatiotemporal Innovation Center, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Jan 23;18(3):996. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18030996.
Social distancing policies have been regarded as effective in containing the rapid spread of COVID-19. However, there is a limited understanding of policy effectiveness from a spatiotemporal perspective. This study integrates geographical, demographical, and other key factors into a regression-based event study framework, to assess the effectiveness of seven major policies on human mobility and COVID-19 case growth rates, with a spatiotemporal emphasis. Our results demonstrate that stay-at-home orders, workplace closures, and public information campaigns were effective in decreasing the confirmed case growth rate. For stay-at-home orders and workplace closures, these changes were associated with significant decreases ( < 0.05) in mobility. Public information campaigns did not see these same mobility trends, but the growth rate still decreased significantly in all analysis periods ( < 0.01). Stay-at-home orders and international/national travel controls had limited mitigation effects on the death case growth rate ( < 0.1). The relationships between policies, mobility, and epidemiological metrics allowed us to evaluate the effectiveness of each policy and gave us insight into the spatiotemporal patterns and mechanisms by which these measures work. Our analysis will provide policymakers with better knowledge regarding the effectiveness of measures in space-time disaggregation.
社交距离政策被认为是有效控制 COVID-19 快速传播的手段。然而，从时空角度来看，人们对政策效果的理解有限。本研究将地理、人口统计和其他关键因素纳入基于回归的事件研究框架，从时空角度评估了七种主要政策对人类流动性和 COVID-19 病例增长率的影响。研究结果表明，居家令、工作场所关闭和公共信息宣传活动在降低确诊病例增长率方面是有效的。对于居家令和工作场所关闭，这些变化与流动性的显著下降（<0.05）有关。公共信息宣传活动没有看到这些相同的流动性趋势，但在所有分析期内增长率仍显著下降（<0.01）。居家令和国际/国内旅行管制对死亡病例增长率的缓解作用有限（<0.1）。政策、流动性和流行病学指标之间的关系使我们能够评估每项政策的有效性，并深入了解这些措施在时空上的作用模式和机制。我们的分析将为政策制定者提供更好的关于措施在时空细分方面的有效性的知识。
