Table 1 Studies on the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 morbidity and mortality outcomes, January 1, 2020–May 11, 2021
Interventiona | Outcome | No. of studies favoring intervention | No. of studies favoring no intervention | Sign test p | Overall risk of biasb |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Working from home or telecommuting [41] | COVID-19 illness | 1 (significant) | 0 | 1.0 | Serious |
Physical barrier [45] | COVID-19 incidence | 1 (significant) | 0 | 1.0 | Serious |
Initial business closure [35] | COVID-19 case growth rate | 1 (significant) | 0 | 1.0 | Moderate |
Initial business closure [67] | Epidemic doubling time | 1 (significant) | 0 | 1.0 | Moderate |
COVID-19 incidence or case growth rate | 6 (5 significant, 1 not significant) | 1 (not significant) | 0.13 | Moderate for 4 studies, serious for 3 studies | |
Reproduction number | 4 (3 significant, 1 not significant) | 0 | 0.13 | Moderate for 1, serious for 2, critical for 1 | |
Workplace closure [67] | Epidemic doubling time | 1 (not significant) | 0 | 1.0 | Moderate |
Workplace closure [50] | COVID-19 death growth rate | 1 (not significant) | 0 | 1.0 | Moderate |
Lockdown [30,31,32,33,34,35,36, 42, 46, 50, 51, 53, 55, 56, 58, 60,61,62, 65, 66, 68,69,70] | COVID-19 incidence or case growth rate | 23 (22 significant, 1 not significant) | 0 |  < 0.001 | Moderate for 19, serious for 4 |
Reproduction number | 11 (10 significant, 1 not significant) | 0 |  < 0.001 | Moderate for 4, serious for 6, critical for 1 | |
Epidemic doubling time | 4 (1 significant, 3 not significant) | 0 | 0.13 | Moderate for 2, serious for 2 | |
COVID-19 mortality or death growth rate | 7 (7 significant) | 0 |  < 0.05 | Moderate for 6, serious for 1 |