Study: Lockdown, Bangladesh’s most suitable choice to reduce infections

Collected
Researchers at Imperial College London advise social distancing the entire population is a good way to tackle the pandemic, despite resulting monetary hardships

Amid speculation of relaxing the lockdown by reopening elements of the economy in Bangladesh, a report by Imperial College London finds that the suppression method is a lot more effective than the mitigation method in countries with lower incomes.  

It predicts that the lockdown has to continue until any vaccine or cure is available. However, researchers estimated that even if the government keeps the lockdown set up, Covid-19 could claim around 52,141 lives in Bangladesh.

The study findings conclude that Bangladesh can reduce infections by 68.92% to 91.93% , and deaths by 69.21% to 91.86%, simply by maintaining social distancing in the complete population until the pandemic ends. 

The objective of a lockdown, according to Imperial College London Covid-19 Response Team, is to lessen reproduction - to lessen the number of folks each confirmed case infects.

It says there are two routes to try to get there - suppression and mitigation.

Suppression, or basically lockdown, aims to lessen case numbers to low levels by socially distancing the complete population indefinitely, and closing schools and universities.

Mitigation aims at slowing however, not necessarily stopping the spread, thereby reducing peak healthcare demand, while protecting those most at risk. This is done by isolating suspected cases and their households, and socially distancing older people and persons at highest threat of serious illness.

The analysis estimated that if Bangladesh took the mitigation route rather than the suppression or lockdown route, and applied social distancing only with select population groups like the elderly and at risk, some 111,991,810 persons could get infected and 467,030 persons could die by the finish of the pandemic.    

If a suppression or lockdown approach is taken with a simple reproduction number of 3, and had 75% of the populace practicing social distancing over the board, the quantity of total infected could possibly be only 12,435,481, and the amount of total deaths could be only 52,141, says the study.

This signifies that if the strategy is mitigation only no social distancing is followed by the whole population, the number of total infected increases by 43.28% and the amount of total deaths increases by 42.93%.

“We usually do not consider the wider social and monetary costs of suppression, which is high and could be disproportionately so in low income settings. Moreover, suppression strategies should be maintained for some reason until vaccines or effective treatments become open to avoid the risk of later epidemics,” reads the analysis. 

By May 2, Bangladesh has confirmed 175 coronavirus deaths and practically 8,800 infections. 

The study, that was published on March 26, estimates that Covid-19 could have led to 7 billion infections and 40 million deaths globally this season without interventions. 

Considering the healthcare system, accessibility to healthcare, population size and income inequality in Bangladesh, the mitigation method coupled with social distancing and shielding vulnerable groups wouldn't normally be as effective as the suppression solution to minimize infection rates, in line with the study.

As per the analysis, the suppression method works best for lower-middle countries like Bangladesh. However, the lockdown has hit hard on people who survive on daily wages in Bangladesh. The true challenge for the federal government is to provide for these persons if they would like to enforce a lockdown for an extended period of time.   

A recently available study conducted by Brac Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), in partnership with researchers from the Accountability Research Center of American University and Georgetown University, and the Development Research Initiative (dRi), discovered that the lockdown imposed by the government was widely accepted across the population of Bangladesh, once the first few deaths were reported in the united states. 

However, there's been a drastic decline in the income of daily wage earners, rickshaw pullers, and other transport workers, in fact it is becoming harder to allow them to adhere to the shutdown.
Source: https://www.dhakatribune.com

Tags :

Share this news on:

Previous Story

Trending Topics

Archive