Natural experiments are happening real-time during this pandemics and different countries take various public health intervention approaches to the COVID-19 pandemic.
For example, Sweden is implementing calibrated precautions and isolating only the most vulnerable rather than imposing a full lock-down. Gatherings of more than 50 people are prohibited but they have kept their borders open as well as its preschools, grade schools, bars, restaurants, parks, and shops.
The strategy is to focus on social distancing among the known risk groups, like the elderly… and to develop herd immunity as their young people spread the virus (mostly asymptomatically) generating protective antibodies that make it harder for the virus to find a new host. In the meantime, the social distancing measures focus primarily on the elderly and folks with chronic medical conditions.
The controls (Norway and Switzerland) are implementing measures much like the ones underway here in the U.S., with aggressive social distancing of the entire population (of course each state has a different idea about what the definition of an essential service or industry is).
University researchers will be able to compare the effectiveness of the various public health intervention strategies and determine which were effective and how. The research will be able to shed light on the intervention effectiveness with respect to hospital capacity and mortality from the virus, but also compare the short and mid-term impact to the economy, GDP and the effects that those economic changes influence the social determinants and outcomes.
At the end of this pandemic we should have a rich base of public health literature to draw upon for future pandemics. Up until now, we’ve had to rely on old literature from 1918 and experiences from the less impactful H1N1 pandemic.
