Social isolation may be helpful in fighting COVID-19?

Social distancing significantly slows down the spread of coronavirus, as American scientists have found. However, it did not appear to reduce the number of new infections per day, said in a new study published in the medRxiv preprint repository.

The study showed that social distancing measures become noticeable only after 12 days - due to the incubation period of the virus and the preparation of test results.

Scientists analyzed how COVID-19 incidence statistics have changed, including doubling the number of cases in 50 states and Washington. It turned out that social distancing reduced the rate of doubling the number of infected. However, the most dramatic changes were observed in the most affected states.

While measures for social isolation, as scientists have found, did not lead to a decrease in the number of new infections per day. According to scientists, other measures, including contact tracing, increasing the number of tests, and toughening quarantine, can have an impact on morbidity.

Besides, the level of infection, according to experts, will inevitably decrease as more people suffer the disease and become resistant to it.

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