Flattening the curve: How social distancing slows down coronavirus spread

The novel coronavirus was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11 adding to the urgency felt by many countries to take action to halt its spread.

States that had not been affected as strongly by the disease began talking about “flattening the curve”.

Many of the consequent strategies involved in stopping the virus involve social isolation to reduce or slow infections.

In a pandemic, if a virus spreads unchecked, too many people get sick at the same time and this causes a heavy burden on healthcare resources. This can lead to a shortage of ICU (intensive care unit) beds, respirator shortages for those whose breathing has been affected by Covid-19, and heightens risks faced by frontline medical workers, such as doctors, nurses, and paramedics.

Since Covid-19 is a virus that sickens people exponentially or at an accelerating rate, “flattening the curve” is especially important in coronavirus cases.

In a Medium article, data scientist Tomas Pueyo discusses, pointed out that in “South Korea cases have exploded, but ... Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand or Hong Kong haven’t.”

He argued this was down to the strategies used by those countries to ‘flatten the curve’.

Pueyo concluded that “Countries that act fast can reduce the number of deaths by a factor of ten. And that’s just counting the fatality rate. Acting fast also drastically reduces the cases, making this even more of a no-brainer.”

Flattening the curve means spreading the infection over a longer period of time rather than allowing many people to get sick at the same time. The reasoning follows that while the number of infections may remain the same in the end, if they are spread out over time, it would be less taxing for hospitals and healthcare professionals.

In order to flatten the curve, people regardless of whether they show symptoms or not are asked to stay at home and to minimise contact with others when shopping for food and supplies. The goal is to lower the rate of the virus’s spread. This is called “social distancing”.

John Hopkins University offers the following definition of social distancing: “Social distancing is a public health practice that aims to prevent sick people from coming in close contact with healthy people in order to reduce opportunities for disease transmission.”

The United States’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended on March 15 that events that could draw crowds of more than 50 people should be cancelled or postponed for the next eight weeks. The CDC was clear to point out that its recommendation “does not apply to the day to day operation of organizations such as schools, institutes of higher learning, or businesses.” These institutions are taking their own preventive measures.

Mortality rate

In the United Kingdom, according to an official briefing that the Guardian has seen, the Covid-19 epidemic there may last until spring 2021.

The document says that: “As many as 80% of the population are expected to be infected with Covid-19 in the next 12 months, and up to 15% (7.9 million people) may require hospitalisation.”

According to the Guardian’s calculations, a one percent mortality rate would equate 531,100 deaths in the UK, whereas a less dire scenario suggested by Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser places the rate as closer to 0.6 percent, meaning 318,660 deaths.

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel said that as much as 70 percent of the country’s population could become infected with Covid-19.

In light of predictions that the epidemic may last at least another year and threaten to kill hundreds of thousands of people, the importance of social distancing becomes clearer.