Effect of COVID-19 Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions and the Implications for Human Rights

Abstract

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments swiftly decided to order nationwide lockdowns based on limited evidence that such extreme measures were effective in containing the epidemic. A growing concern is that governments were given little time to adopt effective and proportional interventions protecting citizens’ lives while observing their freedom and rights. This paper examines the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) in containing COVID-19, by conducting a linear regression over 108 countries, and the implication for human rights. The regression results are supported by evidence that shows the change in 10 selected countries’ responding strategies and their effects as the confirmed cases increase. We found that school closures are effective in containing COVID-19 only when they are implemented along with complete contact tracing. Our findings imply that to contain COVID-19 effectively and minimize the risk of human rights abuses, governments should consider implementing prudently designed full contact tracing and school closure policies, among others. Minimizing the risk of human rights abuses should be a principle even when full contact tracing is implemented.

The effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19-related mortality: A generalized synthetic control approach across 169 countries

“…Our results do not corroborate the findings of former studies with less countries relying on first wave data, and following different, mostly DiD type analytical approaches on school closures [10,13,[17][18][19], workplace closures [17][18][19], stay at home orders [16,18], restrictions on international travel [15], and mask obligations [11,15]. These differences may also emerge from underreporting and missing timeliness of reporting of fatalities during the first viral outbreak [14,17].…”

“…Fifth, we checked if our results depend on treatment timing. It is reasonable to assume that the implementation of NPIs in an early phase of the viral outbreak is more effective [19,43]. We therefore re-estimated our models separately for early and late adopters.…”

“…First, while NPIs eventually aim at avoiding fatalities related to COVID-19, earlier studies on their efficacy have primarily focused on infections. Only ten of the 37 studies listed in Table S1 investigate the effect of NPIs on COVID-19related deaths [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. Although studies on infections provide important insights on how NPIs affect the disease dynamics, they cannot adequately evaluate the main aim of avoiding fatalities.…”

“…Against this backdrop and given the heterogeneity in data used, methods applied, and NPIs, time spans and countries/territories analysed, the results of early NPI studies vary considerably. Early causal analyses on daily COVID-19-related fatalities accounting for population size and the temporal delay of treatment impacts find substantial mitigating effects for the initial 'lockdown' [12,14], school closure [10,13,18,19], workplace closure [18,19], cancellation of public events [18], stay-at-home orders [16], travel restrictions [15], and mask obligations [11,15]. However, all these studies are based on data of the first wave.…”

Community Awareness, Perceptions, Enablers and Potential Barriers to Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) in the COVID-19 Pandemic in Rivers State, Nigeria

“…Being a novel disease, the absence of an effective treatment and initial absence of a vaccines led sustained transmission causing huge socio-economic and health impact, necessitating countries to institute Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) such as hand hygiene, compulsory use of face masks, surface and object cleaning, quarantine, isolation, lock down, travel ban and restrictions [11][12][13][14][15]. Studies found a relationship between non-pharmaceutical interventions and decreased COVID-19 related mortality and morbidity in China, Europe and other part of the world [15][16][17][18][19][20]. There is evidence that people actively evaluate the NPIs using criteria such as perceived necessity, efficacy, acceptability, and feasibility [21].…”