During the pandemic, many countries have imposed night curfews in an attempt to reduce the spread of COVID-19. How successful have these measures been? According to a recent study, they may have actually increased transmission.
Sotiris Georganas and colleagues took advantage of a natural experiment in Greece whereby the timing of night curfew shifted in one region but not in another. While a 9pm curfew had been in place throughout the country since November of 2020, a 6pm weekend curfew was introduced on 6th February in the Attica region (which includes Athens).
The authors used Google mobility data to examine how time spent at home, and time spent at groceries/pharmacies, changed in the Attica region and the Epirus and Western Macedonia region (where the timing of night curfew did not shift). Specifically, they examined mobility data in each region in the five weekends before the shift, as well as the four weekends after.
What did the authors find? Compared to the Epirus & Western Macedonia region, the Attica region saw a small and statistically significant increase in time spent at home, as well as a small and non-significant decrease in time spent at groceries/pharmacies. In other words, the shift in the timing of night curfew had – at best – a marginal impact on mobility.
Given that the shift reduced the time available for shopping by three full hours (a change of almost 20%), the overall effect will have been to increase crowding – by concentrating roughly the same amount of shopping into a shorter time period. As a consequence, it may well have led to a rise in transmission.
In the authors’ words, “As more people were present simultaneously in high-risk places such as supermarkets, the early curfew backfired.” This finding suggests that governments should focus on protecting care homes and hospitals, rather than trying to control the epidemic by tweaking people’s shopping habits.
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Obvious innit
The virus goes home in the evening. A shower, evening meal and a good nights sleep before out and about the next day
Am I the only one who knew this?
It seems people have been standing up at home, when they should have been sitting down.
“In other words, the shit in the timing of night curfew had – at best – a marginal impact on mobility.“
Might want to correct that typo…
Interesting piece, thanks, anyway.
Thanks.
I think it was a Freudian correction
“ This finding suggests that governments should focus on protecting care homes and hospitals, rather than trying to control the epidemic by tweaking people’s shopping habits.”
Yes, IF governments wanted to control the epidemic. But their aim is to control people’s minds. So tweaking shopping habits is a spot-on strategy. Keep it random, keep it complicated and keep the fear.
“They’ve got the F.E.A.R.”
“As more people were present simultaneously in high-risk places such as supermarkets, the early curfew backfired”.
“Backfired” is a very generous interpretation considering all the other barrage of lies we get.
Well, whodathunkit!
People need to realise that the most important factor in infection is the acquisition of a sufficiently high viral load to beat your body defences. Casual, transient contact does not transmit sufficient to be dangerous to all but the weakest immune system, lack of symptons means that even with the virus they are not shedding large quantities of virus. The places where you run a risk are where you spend a long period in contact with others – homes, care homes and hospitals.
Perfect. I concur, transmission was of minor importance out in the ambulatory community. All fear & fraud.
Finally, a scientific study shows us how to get the BBC to cover anti-lockdown protests.
Attack the BBC reporter who’s there to report on any violence. Then he can do his job AND make it all about him. Added bonus – you’ll get “Boris” and “what does her prettiness have to do with it, you sexist oaf” Patel involved too. Sadly, there’ll still be no reporting of the actual anti-lockdown protest as such.
All you get is the message that anti-lockdown protestors are violent, nasty people, based on the actions of a handful who are not even verified as true supporters and may have been deliberately place by opponents to discredit the protest.
PS Who believes this man had gone out to film it. Where is the film crew and sound people. The only footage I saw was from a phone, maybe, just maybe, held by another agent provocateur.
This is just evil
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-06-covid-vaccines-safety-strong-immunity.html
A group of scientists led by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian reported that the Moderna mRNA vaccine and a protein-based vaccine candidate elicited durable neutralizing antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 in pre-clinical research. There were no adverse effects.
The research, published June 15 in Science Immunology, suggests that vaccines for young children are likely important, safe tools to curtail the pandemic.
Evil indeed.
Politicians around the world are trying all methods to control people (not covid), regardless of how ridiculous they are.
The control is required so as to ensure that the genocide runs smoothly.
“Ooh! A passport! Are we going somewhere?”
“Don’t worry about your washbag. We’ve everything you’re going to need”
Pretty obvious. And it’s pretty obvious that this happened when we shut down “non essential” retail here in the UK. All those shops that had a wide range of products became very busy – I’m thinking here of The Range, which I popped into to get some PVA glue, it was rammed. They stayed open because they sold “essential” items too – food and DIY – but most people were just there for something to do.
If smaller craft, book, clothing shops had been open people would have been more spread out, leading to less transmission.
6pm curfew? Who’d have thought the Greeks would make our bunch look like libertarians?
When will the penny drop for governments all over the world, that lockdowns don’t work? When will they look at the evidence, sorry, DATA, from Texas, Florida, South Dakota, etc. proving the point? Or maybe they DO know, but keep using futile tactics to keep us oppressed?