The effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 cases, deaths and demand for hospital services in the UK: a modelling study

Nicholas G Davies; Adam J Kucharski; Rosalind M Eggo; Amy Gimma; W. John Edmunds

When interventions have a limited duration, their impact can be influenced by timing. If interventions are triggered at the same time across all locations, they may arrive too early in some locations and too late in others. We therefore estimated the impact of triggering interventions at different times, both nationally and at a local level. We projected that triggering interventions locally instead of nationally could modestly reduce the total number of cases and deaths, as well as reduce peak demands on the healthcare system ( Fig. 3a, b ; Table S3 ). However, our simulations do not account for any differences in the implementation of or adherence to control measures which might arise from these timings varying in different parts of the country. Examining the simulated dynamics at a county level ( Fig. 3c ) shows that the timing of local epidemics may vary among counties, and highlights that epidemics at a local level are predicted to peak more sharply than they do across the entire UK.