COVID control: a global study

A team from the University of Zagreb in Croatia has surveyed the various ways in which national governments attempted to control the spread of the COVID-19 virus, SARS-CoV-2. Writing in the International Journal of Student Project Reporting, Karla Baričević and Marina Bagić Babac explain how different countries implemented a range of social and economic policies to this end. Their work tracks the epidemiology and shows how the pandemic was affected by the measures put in place. The findings could have implications for controlling the next emergent pathogen with the potential to cause a global pandemic.

The response of different nations to the COVID-19 pandemic was not uniform. Some countries implemented tight lockdowns, border controls, and quarantine arrangements very early in the evolution of the pandemic. Others took a different approach hoping for so-called “herd immunity” rather than social measures to control the virus. Unfortunately, the notion of herd immunity never arose and the emergence of many different variants of the disease represented an ongoing problem throughout the pandemic. Control was at least seen once vaccination became available. That has not been universally available and the World Health Organisation is not yet in a position to sign off on the end of the pandemic. The new normal means COVID-19 is perhaps here to stay.

The team has simulated and analysed different epidemiological factors, including the reproduction number, R, as well as epidemic growth and decay. The aim being to identify the combination and timing of countermeasures that best controlled the spread of COVID-19 reduced morbidity and mortality and also had the least detrimental impact on society and the economy.

Baricevic, K. and Bagic Babac, M. (2022) ‘Exploratory analysis of the effectiveness of measures against the COVID-19 disease’, Int. J. Student Project Reporting, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp.188–202.