Study: Coronavirus Lockdowns Saved 3 Million Lives In Europe [Infographic]

Just over two months ago, scientists at the Imperial College, London, released a report showing that lockdowns across Europe had saved 59,000 lives up to March 31. On that date, Italy still had the world’s worst death toll and its Civil Protection Agency reported a further 837 daily fatalities. By early June, the country’s strict lockdown had finally yielded results with the curve flattened and the death toll dropping to 53 on June 07.

As devastating and horrific as the pandemic has proven across Europe, it would have been far worse if governments hadn’t moved quickly to impose social distancing measures, shutter schools and ban large public gatherings. The Imperial College in London has now published fresh data up to May 04 showing that government intervention has saved an estimated 3.1 million lives across the continent.

The study gauged the impact of restrictions in 11 European countries that had a collective total of 128,928 deaths as of May 04 including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. It used a novel Bayesian mechanistic model of the infection cycle to observed deaths in order to estimate the number of deaths that would have occurred without interventions.

The number of averted deaths is highest in France at 690,000 while lockdowns in Italy and Germany are thought to have saved 630,000 and 560,000 people, respectively. Despite the study’s positive findings, it cautioned that only 3-4% of the population across the 11 countries contracted COVID-19 which means that there is still a long way to go towards herd immunity and that there’s a real risk of a second wave of the virus emerging as lockdowns are relaxed.

*Click below to enlarge (charted by Statista)