We examine the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical government interventions (NPIs) against COVID-19. In particular, we focus on the impact of strictness and variability in government interventions on the reproduction rate (Rt) and the number of new deaths (per million of inhabitants) in five...

A universal testing and isolation policy is the most viable way to vanquish a pandemic. Its implementation requires: (i) an epidemiological rather than clinical approach to testing, sacrificing accuracy for scalability, convenience and speed; and (ii) state intervention to ramp up production,...