China’s relaxing of COVID-19 social distancing policy after containment appears to have worked

The graphs below summarize key results from a study published in early 2020 by Ainslie and colleagues (). Dr. Ainslie is in the Faculty of Medicine, School of Public Health, Imperial College London. The study looked at within-city movement, as a proxy for economic activity, and how that movement has influenced the numbers of new cases of COVID-19 in various areas, after initial containment.

As you can see, after initial containment is achieved, within-city movement (measured through a “Movement Index”) seems to be uncorrelated with new COVID-19 cases; or somewhat negatively correlated, as the authors note.

This surprising and counterintuitive outcome may be due to people becoming much more cautious about social interactions.