The effect of social distance measures on deaths and peak demand for hospital services in England, 3 March 2020
Paper prepared by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) on the effect of social distance measures.
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Paper prepared by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) on the effect of social distance measures on deaths and peak demand for hospital services in England.
The paper was considered at SAGE 12 on 3 March 2020.
This is the second of 3 annexes tabled to SAGE 12, to support a draft paper on the Potential impact of behavioural and social interventions on an epidemic of Covid-19 in the UK as previously published. A final version of the main paper was discussed at SAGE 14, and has also been published. This builds on an earlier paper for SAGE 9, and links to later papers for SAGE 10 and 13.
Please note that this paper considered a “reasonable worst case” scenario. These results should not be interpreted as a forecast of what is most likely to happen, but rather indicative outputs to inform planning at the time. Reasonable worst case scenarios are considered for planning to ensure that we are able to respond to a range of scenarios. These modelling outputs are subject to uncertainty given the evidence available at the time, and dependent on the assumptions made.
These results should not be interpreted as a forecast, but rather illustrative outputs under a set of assumptions to inform wider discussion. These modelling outputs are subject to uncertainty given the evidence available at the time, and dependent on the assumptions made.
It should be viewed in context: the paper was the best assessment of the evidence at the time of writing. The picture is developing rapidly and, as new evidence or data emerges, SAGE updates its advice accordingly. Therefore, some of the information in this paper may have been superseded and the author’s opinion or conclusion may since have developed.
A more developed version of this analysis has also since been published by the authors.
These documents are released as pre-print publications that have provided the government with rapid evidence during an emergency. These documents have not been peer-reviewed and there is no restriction on authors submitting and publishing this evidence in peer-reviewed journals.