COVID study: US protection measures prevented 60M infections

(CNN/Gray News) – Without large-scale quarantine policies, health experts say there would have been tens of millions more coronavirus infections across the globe.

The information comes from a study in the scientific journal Nature.

The report used data from the pandemic in the United States, China, South Korea, Italy, Iran and France.

“We estimate that across these six countries, interventions prevented or delayed on the order of 62 million confirmed cases, corresponding to averting roughly 530 million total infections,” the authors of the study said.

The estimates suggest that, without certain policies in place from the beginning of the pandemic in January through early April, there would be roughly:

-- 60 million more total infections in the United States

-- 285 million more in China

-- 38 million more in South Korea

-- 49 million more in Italy

-- 54 million more in Iran

-- 45 million more in France

Researchers did not project how many deaths might have been prevented.

The authors said they couldn’t think of any human endeavor that has saved so many lives in such a short period of time.