ArticleNature communications2021
Understanding the effectiveness of government interventions against the resurgence of COVID-19 in Europe.
Article in Nature communications, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 124 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
124 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 224 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effectiveness of social distancing measures and lockdowns for reducing transmission of COVID-19 in non-healthcare, community-based settings.Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences · 2023Pooled it
- The impact of geo-environmental factors on global COVID-19 transmission: A review of evidence and methodology.The Science of the total environment · 2022Pooled it
- Systematic review of empirical studies comparing the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions against COVID-19.The Journal of infection · 2021Pooled it
- Inferring variant-specific effective reproduction numbers from combined case and sequencing data.eLife · 2026Article
- Counterfactual evaluation of elementary and secondary school policies in the COVID-19 pandemic.Nature communications · 2026Article
- A modeling study on the critical sensitivity of epidemic peaks and final size to marginal changes in non-pharmaceutical intervention efficacy.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Mortality risk during the COVID-19 pandemic is shaped by human development.BMC global and public health · 2026Article
- Uncertainty and inconsistency of COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical intervention effects with multiple competitive statistical models.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Epidemiological Trends of COVID-19 Infection and Symptom Incidence in China Following the Adjustment of Zero-COVID Policy: A Prospective, Community-Based Cohort Study.Transboundary and emerging diseases · 2026Article
- Optimal pandemic control strategies and cost-effectiveness of COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical interventions in the United States.BMC global and public health · 2025Article
- Clustering-based methodology for comparing multi-characteristic epidemiological dynamics with application to COVID-19 epidemiology in Europe.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Estimating the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions against COVID-19 transmission in the Netherlands.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Non-COVID-19 mortality among older people or with chronic conditions during year 2020 in France: a nationwide cohort study.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Evaluating the COVID-19 responses of Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, February-June 2020: a counterfactual modeling study.BMC medicine · 2025Article
- Estimating the causal impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 spread in seven EU countries via machine learning.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- From node to network: weaving a global perspective on efficacy and costs of non-pharmaceutical interventions.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Case Series of Post-COVID-19 Mucormycosis in Serbia/Rhino-Orbital-Cerebral Form: Surgical and Medical Treatment.Case reports in infectious diseases · 2025Article
- What Lessons can Be Learned From the Management of the COVID-19 Pandemic?International journal of public health · 2025Review
- The Impact of Public Health and Social Measures (PHSMs) on SARS-CoV-2 Transmission in the WHO European Region (2020-2022).Influenza and other respiratory viruses · 2024Article
- Evaluating the direct effect of vaccination and non-pharmaceutical interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe.Communications medicine · 2024Article
64 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
24 authors at 8 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
European governments use non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to control resurging waves of COVID-19. However, they only have outdated estimates for how effective individual NPIs were in the first wave. We estimate the effectiveness of 17 NPIs in Europe's second wave from subnational case and death data by introducing a flexible hierarchical Bayesian transmission model and collecting the largest dataset of NPI implementation dates across Europe. Business closures, educational institution closures, and gathering bans reduced transmission, but reduced it less than they did in the first wave. This difference is likely due to organisational safety measures and individual protective behaviours-such as distancing-which made various areas of public life safer and thereby reduced the effect of closing them. Specifically, we find smaller effects for closing educational institutions, suggesting that stringent safety measures made schools safer compared to the first wave. Second-wave estimates outperform previous estimates at predicting transmission in Europe's third wave.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.