On March 10, GSL Director Steven Hoffman was featured in a Vox article by Julia Belluz discussing Italy’s response to its large scale COVID-19 outbreak. Earlier this week the Italian government had decided to extend lockdown measures to the entire country. This means that public gathering and entertainment places such as restaurants, movie theatres, stadiums and gyms, to name just a few, will be closed.
In the article, Hoffman argues that the measures implemented by the Italian government might be disproportionate to the containment of COVID-19 they would like to achieve. He cited a preliminary study that focussed on the Wuhan quarantine and showed that a lockdown only slowed the virus’s progression by about three days. The possible traumatic after-effects of a large scale quarantine, according to Hoffman, should be put in perspective with the possible 3 day period a quarantined region can gain on the virus.
Read the full article here.
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