Do curfews alone help slow the spread of coronavirus? Experts weigh in
U.S. states and cities are starting to implement curfews to help slow the spread of COVID-19, but health experts aren’t sure if those measures — alone — will make any impact.
The intention is to reduce crowded high-risk activity at nightclubs, bars and other popular spots, which typically involves drinking that can influence people’s ability to follow safety measures like mask wearing and physical distancing.
A statewide curfew was just enforced in Ohio. Other states such as California, Massachusetts and Colorado are doing targeted curfews focused on counties and cities with a high number of coronavirus cases.
But some experts fear curfews might just lead people to gather elsewhere, like indoors where risks of infection are even higher, or guide them to visit businesses in narrower periods of time with more crowding and potential exposures.
“There’s nothing magical about a special time of night when the virus is less or more likely to transmit,” Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told 10WBNS.
“But I do worry about, if people have no place other to congregate than in their homes, they’re going to do that more now that they don’t have the opportunity to go to a restaurant where they’re likely to be monitored by the wait staff, the managers there, to make sure they are social distancing,” Adalja added.
In other words, “viruses are not vampires,” Angela Rasmussen, a virologist with Georgetown University’s Center for Global Health Science and Security, told Slate. “If gyms or bars are operating (especially at capacity) prior to 10 p.m., there is still a substantial exposure risk.”
Transportation away from businesses once curfew hits could also potentially expose others to the coronavirus via ride shares, taxis, trains or buses, experts note.
“I think it’s wishful thinking that a curfew might help reduce the spread,” Efthimios Parasidis, a law and public health professor at The Ohio State University, told 10WBNS. “I would be shocked if the data over the next two weeks shows any type of impact has been made by a curfew.”
Studies to date have not analyzed the impact of curfews alone, but those that have taken them into consideration found that curfews, together with other measures like occupancy limitations and mask mandates, have helped slow the spread of new infections.
Michael Levy, an epidemiologist at the University of Pennsylvania, told USA Today that a lockdown is what’s really needed to make the impact local government officials think curfews will accomplish.
“We just need to call it something else, but that’s what we need to do,” Levy told the outlet. “Everything that helps people stop coming into contact with other people is critical right now. We need to put our foot back on the brakes.”
This story was originally published November 20, 2020 at 11:47 AM with the headline "Do curfews alone help slow the spread of coronavirus? Experts weigh in."
