Study reveals social distancing reduced COVID-19 infection rates

COPENHAGEN: A new study has revealed that social distancing during the six weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic has reduced infection rates by up to 45 per cent in Europe, according to the University of Southern Denmark.

"In these smartphone times, we have access to so much data that we can monitor pandemics in a completely new and more accurate way," Xinhua news agency quoted Francesco Sannino, professor of theoretical physics at the University of Southern Denmark, as saying on Thursday.

Sannino worked on the study in association with colleagues Giacomo Cacciapaglia and Corentin Cot at the University of Lyon in France. According to the study, the inhabitants of Italy, France, Portugal, and Spain had the lowest mobility, and infection rates fell by an average of 30 per cent during the six weeks monitored. However, Sweden proved an anomaly.

The Scandinavian country experienced a reduction in the infection rate of the same order of magnitude as Italy, France, Portugal, and Spain, despite having a far more mobile population.

The researchers accounted for the discrepancy by suggesting that a certain degree of social distance consensus must have arisen within the Swedish population. (IANS) 

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