ArticleThe Lancet. Public health2020
Effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 cases, deaths, and demand for hospital services in the UK: a modelling study.
Article in The Lancet. Public health, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 490 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
490 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions as implemented in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic: a rapid review.Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2025Pooled it
- Marburg virus disease outbreaks, mathematical models, and disease parameters: a systematic review.The Lancet. Infectious diseases · 2024Pooled it
- Effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 transmission: rapid review of evidence from Italy, the United States, the United Kingdom, and China.Frontiers in public health · 2024Pooled it
- The association of intensity and duration of non-pharmacological interventions and implementation of vaccination with COVID-19 infection, death, and excess mortality: Natural experiment in 22 European countries.Journal of infection and public health · 2022Pooled it
- Postpandemic Social Contact Patterns: A Cross-Sectional Survey in Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam.Infectious diseases and therapy · 2026Article
- Modeling the impact of adherence to U.S. isolation and masking guidance on SARS-CoV-2 transmission in office workplaces in 2021-2022.Epidemics · 2026Article
- Disentangling the drivers of heterogeneity in SARS-CoV-2 transmission from data on viral load and daily contact rates.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- The impact of shielding on COVID-19 hospitalisations and deaths during 2020 in England: a transmission modelling evaluation using the OpenSAFELY platform.BMC medicine · 2026Article
- Exploring epidemic control policies using nonlinear programming and mathematical models.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Modeling the impact of adherence to U.S. isolation and masking guidance on SARS-CoV-2 transmission in office workplaces in 2021-2022.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- The Risk from Reopening International Travel During a Disease X Pandemic: A Case Study of SARS-CoV-2.Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis · 2026Article
- A compartmental model of variant coexistence, dynamics and dominance in infectious diseases: Case for SARS-CoV-2 in Abu Dhabi.Infectious Disease Modelling · 2026Article
- Mobility-driven synthetic contact matrices as a scalable solution for real-time pandemic response modeling.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Health inequalities in infectious disease modelling.Communications health · 2026Article
- Article
- Paediatric invasive group A streptococcal infections and associations with viral infections in 15 European countries after lifting non-pharmaceutical interventions against SARS-CoV-2: an interrupted time-series analysis.The Lancet regional health. Europe · 2025Article
- Informed decisions about public health and social measures.Health research policy and systems · 2025Review
- Machine learning insights on the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions against COVID-19 in Nigeria.International health · 2025Article
- Optimal algorithms for controlling infectious diseases in real time using noisy infection data.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Clustering-based methodology for comparing multi-characteristic epidemiological dynamics with application to COVID-19 epidemiology in Europe.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
430 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundNon-pharmaceutical interventions have been implemented to reduce transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in the UK. Projecting the size of an unmitigated epidemic and the potential effect of different control measures has been crucial to support evidence-based policy making during the early stages of the epidemic. This study assesses the potential impact of different control measures for mitigating the burden of COVID-19 in the UK.
methodsWe used a stochastic age-structured transmission model to explore a range of intervention scenarios, tracking 66·4 million people aggregated to 186 county-level administrative units in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. The four base interventions modelled were school closures, physical distancing, shielding of people aged 70 years or older, and self-isolation of symptomatic cases. We also modelled the combination of these interventions, as well as a programme of intensive interventions with phased lockdown-type restrictions that substantially limited contacts outside of the home for repeated periods. We simulated different triggers for the introduction of interventions, and estimated the impact of varying adherence to interventions across counties. For each scenario, we projected estimated new cases over time, patients requiring inpatient and critical care (ie, admission to the intensive care units [ICU]) treatment, and deaths, and compared the effect of each intervention on the basic reproduction number, R
findingsWe projected a median unmitigated burden of 23 million (95% prediction interval 13-30) clinical cases and 350 000 deaths (170 000-480 000) due to COVID-19 in the UK by December, 2021. We found that the four base interventions were each likely to decrease R
interpretationThe characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 mean that extreme measures are probably required to bring the epidemic under control and to prevent very large numbers of deaths and an excess of demand on hospital beds, especially those in ICUs.
fundingMedical Research Council.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.