Effects of voluntary event cancellation and school closure as countermeasures against COVID-19 outbreak in Japan

  1. Yoshiyuki Sugishita
  2. Junko Kurita
  3. Tamie Sugawara
  4. Yasushi Ohkusa
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Abstract

Background

To control the COVID-19 outbreak in Japan, sports and entertainment events were canceled and schools were closed throughout Japan from February 26 through March 19. That policy has been designated as voluntary event cancellation and school closure (VECSC).

Object

This study assesses VECSC effectiveness based on predicted outcomes. Method: A simple susceptible–infected–recovery model was applied to data of patients with symptoms in Japan during January 14 through March 25. The respective reproduction numbers were estimated before VECSC (R), during VECSC (Re), and after VECSC (Ra).

Results

Results suggest R before VECSC as 1.987 [1.908, 2.055], Re during VECSC as 1.122 [0.980, 1.260], and Ra after VECSC as 3.086 [2.529, 3.739].

Discussion and Conclusion

Results demonstrated that VECSC can reduce COVID-19 infectiousness considerably, but the value of R rose to exceed 2.5 after VECSC.

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