Advertisement 1

Curfews have been successful at curbing COVID-19 globally

"Only measure that really works is to stop everything and for people to stay at home in their family bubbles," Roxane Borgès da Silva says.

Article content

Curfews have proven to be among some of the most effective lockdown measures to combat COVID-19 because of the age demographic they target and the message they send, said Dr. Donald Vinh, an infectious diseases expert with the McGill University Health Centre.

Given the nature of the majority of transmissions in the province, a curfew could prove very effective here, he said.

Advertisement 2
Story continues below
Article content

“Fifty-eight per cent of confirmed cases in Quebec are people age 20 to age 59. That means the social activities of these age groups account for the majority of ongoing community transmissions,” Vinh said in an interview Wednesday, hours before Premier François Legault announced a curfew order for the province and mandated increased lockdown measures.

Article content

Curfews send the message any type of illicit activities, including nighttime gatherings at people’s homes, will “be cracked down on with no flexibility,” and help to stem activities among groups with the highest infection rates, Vinh said.

Research data indicates curfews have been effective at helping to stem transmission, including in places like India and Africa where their usage has been widespread. But a curfew is only effective if it is used in conjunction with other restrictions, including shutting non-essential businesses and schools, Vinh noted.

Internationally, strict lockdowns have proven very effective, cutting transmissions by as much as 40 to 60 per cent within two to three weeks of their start, and hospitalizations by 50 per cent, he added.

Article content
Advertisement 3
Story continues below
Article content

The key to their success is in their transition from the recommendations of public health authorities and government officials to strict orders, punishable by fines. Effective lockdowns force closures of non-essential businesses and forbid large gatherings and travel outside of one’s home unless it’s for necessities like food or medicine, or to commute to a profession deemed essential.

Recommendations are open to interpretation, Vinh said, and it only takes 20 or 30 per cent of society to not strictly adhere for transmission rates to climb.

“Orders,” on the other hand, “are not at the discretion of the individual to interpret.”

The key to a successful lockdown is to minimize social and physical contacts between people, said Roxane Borgès da Silva, a professor in the Université de Montréal’s school of public health.

“The only measure that really works is to stop everything and for people to stay at home in their family bubbles,” she said. “That’s the way New Zealand and Australia decided to go, and it worked. But they also had far fewer cases than we do.

“We need this electroshock to our system, because the situation is really getting catastrophic,” Borgès da Silva added. “I don’t know how people can’t understand this.”

Advertisement 4
Story continues below
Article content

In an overview of the effectiveness of thousands of government-sponsored measures used worldwide to curtail the spread of the coronavirus, researchers at the Complexity Science Hub Vienna found that using a range of different techniques was often more effective and less costly than instituting national lockdowns.

The five most effective measures for reducing transmission rates researchers found were, in order: cancelling small gatherings; closing schools, closing borders, increasing the availability of protective equipment, and restricting individual movements. Enforcing a national lockdown came in sixth place.

Borgès Da Silva said she favours closing high schools for an extended period to stem transmission, since students are capable of online learning and are vectors of the coronavirus. But she feels elementary schools should be reopened soon for the mental health of the children, and to ease the burden on parents, many of whom will be working from home.

School closures help by reducing the number of adults travelling outside of their homes, Vinh noted, but those benefits have to be weighed against the negative impacts on the health of children.

Advertisement 5
Story continues below
Article content

Borgès Da Silva counselled that all other non-essential work should be shut down, given the number of outbreaks linked to workplaces. At the same time, the government needs to put in place prevention programs to re-explain the importance of wearing masks and washing hands, as standards for many have slipped with time.

She also noted places like France that enacted curfews still allowed people to exercise outdoors or walk the dog alone or with members of their home bubble even after curfew hours.

Vinh said the government has already put in place public health measures and cases are still rising, proving they don’t work.

“That’s a very simplistic, naive perspective,” he said. “There are two aspects — what’s emitted by the government, and what’s adhered to by the public. We need both partners to follow the rules for this to work.”

rbruemmer@postmedia.com

Recommended from Editorial
  1. Urgences-santé paramedics transport a patient to the COVID-19 unit of Notre-Dame Hospital on Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2020.
    Four-week Quebec lockdown begins Saturday; mandatory 8 p.m. curfew imposed across province
  2. People of the Old Brewery Mission stand outside on March 20, 2020.
    How will Quebec's curfew affect homeless people?

All our coronavirus-related news can always be found at montrealgazette.com/tag/coronavirus.

Sign up for our email newsletter dedicated to local COVID-19 coverage at montrealgazette.com/coronavirusnews.

Help support our local journalism by subscribing to the Montreal Gazette here.

Article content
Comments
You must be logged in to join the discussion or read more comments.
Join the Conversation

Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.

This Week in Flyers