Before vaccines, government interventions were more effective at controlling COVID-19 when combined with economic support measures

Before the development of COVID-19 vaccines to reduce the spread of the virus, US state and federal authorities were limited to non-pharmaceutical interventions such as school and workplace closures, the cancelation of public events, and public information campaigns. In new research, Theologos Dergiades, Costas Milas, Elias Mossialos, and Theodore Panagiotidis look at the effects of these interventions in the early days of the pandemic. They find that, in the absence of a vaccine, when used alongside economic support measures, such interventions were effective in controlling the growth of COVID-19 infections.