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KIU International Desk: New Zealand Study and Research Reveals Successful Containment of the Spread of the COVID-19 due to Lockdown Measures

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KIU, Main Campus - The way the virus has spread in different countries, and even in particular states or regions within them, has been quite varied. 

A New Zealand study and research, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, was carried out for 25 countries showing that the spread of the virus has changed in response to the various lockdown measures.

The research classified each country’s public health response using New Zealand’s four-level alert system. Levels 1 and 2 represent relatively relaxed controls, whereas levels 3 and 4 are stricter.

By mapping the change in the effective reproduction number (an indicator of the actual spread of the virus in the community) against response measures, the research showed that countries that implemented level 3 and 4 restrictions sooner had greater success in pushing the reproductive number to below 1; meaning each infected person spreads the virus to less than one other person, on average thereby resulting in the fall of the number of new infections and the ultimate disappearance of the virus from the community.

Conversely, the more freely the virus is spreading in the community due to the laxity of the implementation of stricter controls, the faster the number of new cases will rise. This means a higher number of cases at the peak of the epidemic, a greater risk of the health system becoming overwhelmed, and ultimately more deaths.

Some of the study’s findings from nations around the world have shown this approach to be successful, including in countries like Australia, Italy, USA, United Kingdom, Singapore, and Sweden. Individually, these cases each tell their own story, but together, there is one clear message: that places that moved quickly to implement strict interventions brought the Coronavirus under control much more effectively, with less death and disease.