COVID study: 800,000 deaths were prevented by social distancing | 9news.com – 9News.com KUSA

The report's authors said changing people's behaviors before vaccines became available saved lives, but at great cost.

BOULDER, Colo. A new study authored by researchers at CU Boulder and UCLA says social distancing and other preventative measures, like lockdowns and school closures, prevented hundreds of thousands of deaths in the U.S. from COVID-19.

According to the report, 800,000 more people would have died from COVID and COVID complications had the precautions not been put into place before vaccines became available.

The study's authors, CU Boulder's Stephen Kissler and UCLA's Andrew Atkeson, said the social changes came at great cost.

Our work shows that behavior change can be a powerful force for slowing the spread of a dangerous and infectious respiratory disease for a long time, said Kissler, an assistant professor of computer science at CU Boulder. But with COVID-19, it came at a tremendous economic, social and human cost.

Kissler and Atkeson's research found that vaccines and behavioral changes were inseparably linked.

Without vaccines, behavior alone would have postponed infections, but in the end, nearly everyone would have been infected and subject to a high infection fatality rate from that first infection, they wrote. Without a behavioral response, vaccines would have come too late to save lives.

Their report showed that 68% of Americans were able to get vaccinated before ever being infected. Had people gotten COVID for the first time before being vaccinated, their risk of dying would have been as much as four times higher, the study says.

Kissler and Atkeson were alarmed at how big an impact behavior changes had. Pre-pandemic studies forecasted the changes would be minimal and short-lived. That said, the authors said they worry that if another pandemic were to occur, Americans would be less willing to stay home.

My concern is that the next pandemic will be deadlier, but people will ignore it, because they will say, Oh, we overdid it during COVID,' Atkeson said.

Atkeson and Kissler said U.S. policymakers need to develop a more centralized infrastructure on gathering data on how people more around and interact to spread viruses. They said if this infrastructure was put in place, future pandemic restrictions could be reduced.

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COVID study: 800,000 deaths were prevented by social distancing | 9news.com - 9News.com KUSA