Estimating the Effect of Social Distancing Interventions on COVID-19 in the United States

12 Jul 2020 . Category . Comments #service #outreach #data-science #datawhys #publications #article #research

As part of my volunteer work for the City of Memphis - Shelby County Joint COVID Task Force in the ESF 8 Data Subcommittee, I adapted the ICL European non-pharmaceutical intervention model to the U.S.

This work is now published in the American Journal of Epidemiology:

Olney, A. M., Smith, J., Sen, S., Thomas, F., & Unwin, H. J. T. (2021). Estimating the Effect of Social Distancing Interventions on COVID-19 in the United States. American Journal of Epidemiology, 190(8), 1504–1509. https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwaa293

Here’s the short story:

• Lockdown is the key intervention for bringing the virus under control (of those we tested)
• If lockdown isn't replaced by other interventions that are cumulatively as effective, the virus will continue to spread

This work was featured in the COVID-19 Lightning Talks at the FedEx Institute of Technology:

Here is the accepted manuscript:

And corresponding supplemental material: