Years of life lost due to the psychosocial consequences of COVID19 mitigation strategies based on Swiss data

Dominik Andreas Moser; Jennifer Glaus; Sophia Frangou; Daniel Scott Schechter

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has led to the first truly global pandemic. At the time of writing there over two million reported cases worldwide and more than 130,000 deaths attributed to COVID19 acute infection (1) . Based on models of its spread, and potential for morbidity and mortality that predicted high COVID-19 associated morbidity and mortality, most governments worldwide have adopted mitigation strategies that are essentially aiming to reduce the spread of the virus by limiting social contacts (2, 3) . The aim of these measures would be to "flatten the curve" of acute presentations to prevent widespread morbidity and the break-down of the health care systems. Variants of these social mitigation strategies ranged from "social distancing", which more broadly encompasses measures of at-home-confinement, referred to as "self-isolation", selective "quarantine" to population "lockdown" that includes restriction of movement outdoors and closure of schools and all non-essential services and businesses.