Impact of social distancing on COVID-19

A few days ago the University of Cambridge presented the age-structured impact of social distancing, where, through their model, a 21-day lock-down is found to be insufficient. Instead, the paper proposes a more staggered approach- with periods of ‘relaxation’ in between lock-down periods. The graphic below was built with India in mind, which to some extent, may be drilled down to the South African environment. This forecast alone has been shared plenty on social media without a note on a few model assumptions: — Given the large uncertainty in estimating asymptomatic cases, the model assumes all cases to be symptomatic. A possible effect of this is to underestimate the severity of the outbreak. — Impact of social distancing: In interpreting the lock-down, this meant to remove all social contacts (work, school and others) other than the household ones. This results in an optimistic interpretation, but it does allow for the assessment of the most favourable impact of such a measure. The results, then, are the expected best-case scenarios. It is important to also note when sharing, that this information is not to be taken in isolation.