Institute of Fundamental Technological Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, 02-106, Warsaw, Poland.
Sci Rep. 2021 Jan 28;11(1):2425. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-81869-2.
Countries worldwide have adopted various strategies to minimize the socio-economic impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Stringency of imposed measures universally reflects the standpoint from which protecting public health and avoiding damage to economy are seen as contradictory objectives. Based on epidemic trajectories of 25 highly developed countries and 10 US states in the (mobility reduction)-(reproduction number) plane we showed that delay in imposition of nation-wide quarantine elevates the number of infections and deaths, surge of which inevitably has to be suppressed by stringent and sustained lockdown. As a consequence, cumulative mobility reduction and population-normalized cumulative number of COVID-19-associated deaths are significantly correlated and this correlation increases with time. Overall, we demonstrated that, as long as epidemic suppression is the aim, the trade-off between the death toll and economic loss is illusory: high death toll correlates with deep and long-lasting lockdown causing a severe economic downturn.
全球各国采取了各种策略来将新冠疫情对社会经济的影响最小化。所实施措施的严格程度普遍反映了保护公众健康和避免经济受损这两个目标被视为相互矛盾的立场。基于 25 个高度发达的国家和 10 个美国州在（流动性降低）-（繁殖数）平面上的疫情轨迹，我们表明，全国性隔离措施的延迟实施会增加感染和死亡人数，而这种疫情的激增必然需要通过严格和持续的封锁来抑制。因此，累计流动性降低和人口标准化的与 COVID-19 相关的死亡人数呈显著相关，并且这种相关性会随着时间的推移而增加。总的来说，我们证明了，只要疫情抑制是目标，那么在死亡人数和经济损失之间进行权衡是虚幻的：高死亡率与深度和长期的封锁相关，从而导致严重的经济衰退。
