Lockdowns and other public-health measures may have prevented about half a billion coronavirus infections in six countries, including China and the U.S.
The virus has now caused some 7 million reported cases of Covid-19, with more than 400,000 fatalities. Published Monday in the journal Nature, the first peer-reviewed analysis of the impact of health policies suggests that the toll would have been vastly worse without lockdowns, social distancing, travel restrictions and other interventions. Many coronavirus infections are relatively mild, and most of the roughly 500 million averted cases would have gone undetected, according to the study.
“Seemingly small delays in ...