Evaluation and review of preventive measures applied during COVID-19 pandemic: strategies adopted by European countries

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly jeopardized the European continent and the spread of SARS-COV-2 has led European countries to implement a series of preventive interventions aimed at decreasing the incidence rate of the disease, in consideration of the lack of specific therapies and of a vaccine. Each European country has behaved in different ways and timing accordingly to the epidemiological trend and to different political strategies. The main purpose of preventive measures is to lower the incidence rate of the disease, avoiding the collapse of health systems and limiting the total number of severe cases and deaths. All these targets should fit with needs that go beyond scientific evidence such as economic interests, decisions of neighboring countries and specific socio-political factors for each country. The objective of this research is to clarify which preventive measures have been recommended and applied in different European countries.

Fig. 1.

Survival time of SARS-CoV-2 on different surface. Modified from [10].

Fig. 2.

Total number of confirmed cases and “stay-at-home” orders in Italy, France, Spain, United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands and Sweden; March 1st - 1 July 1st 2020. The coloured area represents the period of national enforced lockdown. Modified from [31, 36-40].

Fig. 3.

Daily ICU occupancy, March, 1, 2020 - July, 1, 2020. Data from Spain relatively to this period was not available; data from Germany, Sweden, Belgium and UK are available later than March, 1 [21].

Fig. 4.

Timing of use of mask. Modified from [31, 41].