No individual patient protected health information was utilized. This cross-sectional ecological study was conducted from publicly available county-level data. Therefore, our aim was to determine the association between the timing of lockdown at the county-level and the spread of COVID-19 after adjusting for the effects of covariates such as demographic profile, geographic, socioeconomic, and other known risk factors of COVID-19. Īn understanding of these factors may aid the medical and scientific communities in identifying populations at greater risk for acquiring COVID-19. Another European study found that total population, poverty, and income are the primary factors regulating death from COVID-19 in the European region. A similar study conducted in Northern Italy during the same period found that specific socioeconomic factors (unemployment and public transportation usage) and the proportion of private healthcare facilities played an important role in the spread of the infection. Socioeconomic status, racial/ethnic minority status, household composition, and environmental factors, were found to be significantly associated with COVID-19 incidence, severity, and mortality. Social determinants of health may lead to healthcare disparities, and have been observed to be associated with an increased risk of infection during prior viral respiratory pandemics. At the time of the preparation of this manuscript, there was significant skepticism regarding withdrawal of state mandated lockdown orders. There has been a lot of debate about the timing and necessity of state mandated lockdown orders as the economy of the states and the country have slowed down due to these steps. Several states never formally implemented any social distancing, and at the time of the data analysis of this study, many had already started relaxing these measures. Most states allowed their residents to leave their homes to get groceries, to exercise outdoors, and to get medical care, while closing non-essential services and mandating social distancing while allowing people associated with essential services to continue working. While state mandated social distancing measures, which will henceforth be called as the lockdown measures, in the Unites States were in effect in most states, the degree of implementation varied between states and even counties. Many nations had opted to secure their borders and implement social distancing measures to mitigate the spread of the virus.
#UNITED STATES LOCKDOWN HOW TO#
There is currently significant global interest in understanding how the infection is spreading, how to contain the spread of the infection, and developing a vaccine against the virus. Since then, the infection has progressed into a worldwide pandemic, with the United States having the greatest number of cases and deaths in the world as of. The first patient with COVID-19 in the United States was diagnosed on Janu. The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was initially discovered in Wuhan, China in December 2019, and has since spread around the globe.