BCHC Releases New Estimates on the Impact of Stay At Home Orders

The Big Cities Health Coalition (BCHC) released estimates that show that early actions by BCHC members, leaders from America’s largest metropolitan health departments, to get the public to stay home led to an estimated 2.1 million hospitalizations avoided and over 200,000 lives saved. These estimates, based on 45-day shelter-in-place/stay-at-home orders, were calculated by the Urban Health Collaborative at Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health using a model published by The New York Times.

Additionally, a survey conducted in April by NP Strategy Group found that Americans in all regions of the country understand the impact of stay-at-home orders in place across the nation. It found that, on average, 4 out of 5 (80%) respondents agree that stay-at-home orders helped keep them and their communities healthier and safer during the pandemic, with agreement across age, gender, political and regional breakouts. At the same time, 75% approve of the actions taken by their local public health leaders, and 68% approve of their elected officials’ decisions. Additional poll results are available here.

BCHC Member City          (Jurisdiction Used in Modeling)

Estimated

Hospitalizations Avoided

Estimated

Lives Saved

Days of Stay at Home Order

After 30 Days

After 45 Days

After 60 Days

After 30 Days

After 45 Days

After 60 Days

Austin (Travis County)

      32,171

       45,898

       54,908

     3,382

       4,988

       5,741

Baltimore City

      15,149

       21,382

       24,985

     1,588

       2,287

       2,589

Boston

      12,523

       19,670

       29,242

     1,310

       2,032

       3,030

Charlotte (Mecklenburg County)

      28,108

       40,005

       47,453

     2,952

       4,320

       4,946

Chicago

      68,254

       97,575

      117,206

     7,187

      10,635

      12,269

Cleveland

       9,692

       13,828

       16,542

     1,019

       1,503

       1,730

Columbus (Franklin County)

      33,253

       47,441

       56,753

     3,496

       5,155

       5,934

Dallas County

      66,556

       94,954

      113,593

     6,997

      10,318

      11,876

Denver

      18,365

       26,201

       31,256

     1,931

       2,842

       3,266

Detroit

      16,987

       24,236

       28,993

     1,745

       2,634

       3,031

Fort Worth (Tarrant County)

      53,096

       75,751

       90,365

     5,583

       8,215

       9,441

Houston

      58,727

       83,784

       99,948

     6,175

       9,086

      10,443

Indianapolis (Marion County)

      24,388

       34,752

       41,340

     2,562

       3,761

       4,314

Kansas City

      12,423

       17,723

       21,143

     1,306

       1,922

       2,209

Las Vegas (Clark County)

      58,205

       81,666

       94,463

     6,097

       8,682

       9,752

Long Beach

      11,873

       16,838

       19,831

     1,246

       1,811

       2,062

Los Angeles County

    253,522

      362,610

      436,656

   26,702

      39,613

      45,762

Miami-Dade County

      68,777

       97,888

      116,113

     7,224

      10,572

      12,103

Minneapolis

      10,782

       15,327

       18,116

     1,132

       1,652

       1,886

New York City

    141,958

      226,728

      288,724

   15,188

      24,062

      30,876

Oakland (Alameda County)

      42,664

       60,216

       70,364

     4,473

       6,441

       7,291

Philadelphia

      40,003

       57,072

       68,275

     4,206

       6,202

       7,138

Phoenix (Maricopa County)

    114,769

      161,603

      187,879

   12,032

      17,263

      19,437

Portland (Multnomah County)

      20,527

       29,286

       35,034

     2,159

       3,183

       3,663

San Antonio (Bexar County)

      52,932

       75,426

       89,723

     5,562

       8,163

       9,364

San Diego County

      84,304

      120,579

      145,202

     8,879

      13,172

      15,217

San Francisco

      22,503

       31,761

       37,112

     2,359

       3,397

       3,845

San Jose (Santa Clara County)

      49,212

       69,453

       81,161

     5,159

       7,429

       8,409

Seattle-King County

      56,891

       81,165

       97,097

     5,981

       8,819

      10,151

Washington, D.C.

      18,015

       25,427

       29,711

     1,888

       2,719

       3,078

Total BCHC Member Jurisdictions

 1,496,629

   2,156,245

   2,589,188

 157,520

    232,878

    270,853

On Methodology

The template for the estimation calculations was based on methodology developed by Community Information Now

From The New York Times: Note that this is a model, not the real world; epidemiologists say that in reality the virus without controls would take longer to spread, partly because of growing immunity and partly because people would become much more careful. We are using the S.E.I.R. (Susceptible, Exposed, Infected and Resistant) model; this differs from a model we previously published because it also considers a latency period, when an infected person is not yet contagious. The weather calculation is based on a seasonality formula from a paper about the coronavirus in Swiss Medical Weekly. This model was adapted from a version developed by the mathematician Gabriel Goh (with assistance from Steven De Keninck, another mathematician), modified for Times Opinion with the guidance of the epidemiologists Ashleigh Tuite and David N. Fisman from the University of Toronto. While we reveal many of the variables in the tool itself, we also made several assumptions based on the best available estimates for the coronavirus: the incubation period is set to 5.2 days; the infectious period is set to 2.9 days; recovery is assumed to take 11.1 days for mild cases and 28.6 days for severe cases; time to death is estimated to be 32 days; we also assume a delay of five days before infected patients visit a hospital.