Lockdowns and the Bounce
A Data Analysis of Mobility Levels & Transmission Rates during European COVID-19 Lockdowns
Published in
19 min readApr 30, 2020
Summary
This analysis looks at Covid-19 lockdowns in and around Europe, their effect on virus transmission rates, and what is likely to happen as restrictions are lifted. It is a longer and more detailed post than normal, so here is a quick summary of what we will cover and the key findings:
- An updated lockdown model is presented, which explores the relationship between the mobility changes that occur during a lockdown and the consequential impact on the transmission rate of the coronavirus
- An analysis of 30 European lockdowns: the critical hold phase of the lockdown last for an average of 30 days and mobility levels fall by over 68% relative to their pre-lockdown level.
- An analysis of lockdown effectiveness: on average, the hold phase of a lockdown reduces the transmission rate of the virus from 3.1 (pre-lockdown) to 0.77 (the average infected person goes on to infect 0.77 susceptible people); 77% of countries that have exited their hold phase have done so with transmission rates below the critical level of 1.
- At the time of writing 73% of countries have exited the hold phase and mobility levels are beginning to rise as…