Lockdown During COVID-19: The Greek Success.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND/AIM: Coronavirus is an ongoing pandemic challenging health systems worldwide. The aim of this report was to evaluate the effectiveness of lockdown in different countries, highlighting the performance of Greek society and authorities. METHODS: We analyzed publicly available data from the "Worldometer". We evaluated the efficacy of lockdown at one month after implementation. Delta Days (DD) referred to the difference in the days of reaching 1 case/million people to the adoption of lockdown. RESULTS: Higher healthcare expenditure as % of the national GDP was not correlated with better 30-day mortality outcomes. DD index was significantly correlated to the incidence of COVID-19 per million people at 30 days (p-value=0.001). The correlation between DD and 30-day mortality was not statistically significant (p-value=0.087). CONCLUSION: Early lockdown was proven to be the appropriate policy to limit the spread of COVID-19. Greece was a success story in preventing spread despite limited resources.