Mandatory masking and social distancing became everyday directives for millions worldwide when the COVID-19 virus exploded onto the scene in 2020. Shelter-in-place (SIP) or stay-at-home orders quickly followed despite evidence supporting the protocol remaining mixed.
SIP Policies Did Not Reduce Excess Deaths
After examining SIP protocols from dozens of countries, researchers determined that restricting people from leaving their homes did not reduce excess mortality. The protocols may have also contributed to excess “deaths of despair” unrelated to the virus but to social and economic isolation effects.To measure policy impacts, researchers took a deep dive into data using the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker. The resource allowed them to extract daily information at both country and U.S. state levels, but they averaged the data to create a weekly value before and after restrictions were put in place.
Specifically, the researchers looked at data from 43 countries and all 50 U.S. states and examined weekly death rates leading up to the restrictions for the years 2015–2019. They then compared these to weekly rates in 2020 after community mitigation strategies were implemented for 25 weeks. Data were assessed with the first data point marked by the first COVID-19 death in each region. Researchers also looked at how long it took states and countries to implement restrictions after the first death.
Deaths due to COVID-19 and all other unrelated causes of death were calculated using incidence rates for both the U.S. states and the 43 countries and compared to regions that did not enforce stay-at-home orders.
Regarding excess deaths, countries averaged 1.68 per 100,000 in the first 50 weeks of 2020, while the United States averaged 2.13 per 100,000 in the first 47 weeks while SIP policies were in place.
Deeper Dive
If SIP policies were meant to reduce COVID-19 deaths, there should have been a negative association between deaths and SIP measures over the 25 weeks, the authors asserted in the paper. However, they found the opposite. The longer people were sheltered, the higher the death rates from COVID-19 internationally and domestically. An upswing also occurred in relation to overall causes of death. Internationally, an estimated 10 per 100,000 excess deaths occurred compared to pre-SIP implementation. In the United States, that number was 5 per 100,000. However, the confidence interval was wide, indicating much uncertainty in the estimate.Benefits and Risks
During the pandemic, many global government officials announced strict orders intended to limit people’s contact with each other to slow the spread of COVID-19. In theory, slowing the spread of the disease would curb infections and prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed.Even if shelter-in-place policies reduced viral transmission, as some studies suggest, their impact on other health behaviors may have led to other harmful effects on physical and mental well-being, with some consequences linked to suicide and accidental death.