According to a study by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), measures such as the obligation to wear masks and contact restrictions have made a significant contribution to combating the corona pandemic. Above all, the combination of the various precautions was decisive for the fact that a person infected with the Sars-CoV-2 pathogen infected significantly fewer people than otherwise, according to the report published on Thursday. “If you look at them individually, they have a much weaker effect,” said an RKI expert on Thursday when the results were presented.
The RKI reports to the Federal Ministry of Health and regularly issued risk assessments and recommendations for infection control during the pandemic, which sparked discussions. For the “Stopt-Covid-Study” the scientists considered more than 20 non-pharmaceutical measures that were prescribed between March 2020 and August 2021. These include the obligation to wear masks, school closures and distance regulations.
“The measures took effect before they even came into force.”
The evaluation is based on data from the districts, which were documented by the Bonn Institute for Applied Social Sciences (infas) on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. The effects of the measures on the infection process were calculated based on the development of the so-called R value. This value indicates how many people an infected person infects on average.
The authors found a particularly sharp drop in the infection rate for contact and assembly restrictions for private individuals in public spaces: They estimate that the R value has fallen by around 20 to 30 percent as a result. In general, the stricter the measures were, the more the R value decreased.
The report notes another aspect: the number of infections fell during the observation period even before the implementation of a new regulation. “That means the measures took effect before they even came into force,” said an RKI expert. This is probably because people – knowing that a new measure would come – would have already followed it, for example reduced their contacts.
According to their own statements, the researchers cannot use the data and their analyzes to assess exactly how individual measures worked separately or whether certain regulations were useless. It was too difficult to separate the effects on the infection process. One thing is certain: “Many restrictions are required to bring about a strong reduction,” said the RKI expert. According to the report, the measures would have prevented the health system from being severely overloaded until effective vaccines were developed.
In addition to the non-pharmaceutical measures, a high vaccination rate made a significant contribution to fewer people becoming infected. “This led to a significantly weaker third wave of Covid-19, especially in the older population,” says the report.
According to the study, however, one aspect should be given more consideration in future pandemics: the mental health of people and their coexistence could suffer from protective measures. Possible negative consequences of precautions and their mitigation should therefore be given more consideration when planning a pandemic.