A recent study from researchers at iiSM.ORG confirms that the spread of coronavirus in the US has been substantially slowed by Social Distancing (S.D.) measures order by the President on March 16th. The report does not appear to be peer reviewed and was posted to the IISM's website.
The data, based on reported COVID-19 cases from Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering, indicates that the infection rates have slowed by 15% over two weeks due to social distancing measures and that the trend is continuing downward as more people in the US are observing Social Distancing guide lines, even as testing rates continue to increase.
The 15-Day study’s findings are as follows:
- Study finds that the daily infection rates dropped from 1.32 to 1.12 in the two-week period after enacting social distancing measures in the US
- This represents a 15% slow down in the rate of progression of the virus
- The study shows that without social distancing, there would have been ~1.2 million cases by April 3rd; however, due to social distancing measures, only 308,900 cases have been reported
- Data indicates US has, conservatively, prevented ½ million cases of COVID-19 due to enacted social distancing measures
- US has likely prevented over 5000 additional deaths thus far due to social distancing measures
