Last weekend, a new confinement began in France throughout the territory. While this type of method has been adopted by many countries to deal with the current health crisis, a recent study points to the lack of effectiveness of isolation periods of less than 50 days.
Around the world, local authorities, but also many companies and other bodies such as the WHO support measures against the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. These include wearing a mask, screening, personal precautions (eg hygiene) or social distancing. However, for a significant number of people, social distancing is synonymous with isolation. Researchers from several Brazilian universities have published a study in the journal Scientific Reports on March 5, 2021. This work attempted to determine whether or not isolating oneself at home actually slows down the circulation of the virus.
More specifically, it is a mathematical model whose objective is to understand the relationship between confinement and the reduction (or increase) in the number of deaths related to the virus. The researchers also explain that they integrated data from 87 countries in an analysis using the linear regression method. This aims to establish a linear relationship between a so-called "explained" variable and one or more other so-called "explanatory" variables.
The authors of the study recall that until January 2021, the coronavirus claimed more than 2 million victims . Various mathematical models and other meta-analyses have already suggested a reduction in coronavirus cases as well as the death rate thanks to the confinements. Nevertheless, the Brazilian researchers believe that confinement did not play a major role in limiting the transmission of the disease.
Above all, the leaders of the study indicate that isolation had positive consequences, but only in the case of a duration greater than 50 days . The same goes for face masks, regular hand washing or early detection of cases, in particular by means of PCR tests. In other words, the measures cited would be ineffective if it is a question of a duration of less than 50 days. Finally, if these results seem rather curious, they do not explain the impact of confinement on the death rate.
More than a year after the appearance of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, France began its third general confinement on April 3, 2021. Businesses deemed non-essential are in the obligation to close their doors and travel is limited to 10 km. We should also mention the fact that, for the first time since the confinement of spring 2020, nurseries and schools will close for three to four weeks. However, this is a confinement lasting less than 50 days. Will it work? Only time will tell.
