Reflections on the impact of “flatten the curve” on interdependent workforce sectors
Open accessAbstract
The expression "flatten the curve" has gained significant attention in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The idea is to decrease and/or delay the peak of an epidemic wave so as not to strain or exceed the capacity of healthcare systems. There has been an increasing number of policy recommendations across the globe that favor the use of nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to flatten the curve. NPIs encompass containment, suppression, and mitigation measures such as quarantine, travel restrictions, and business closures. This paper provides perspectives on the impact of containment, suppression, and mitigation measures on interdependent workforce sectors. Reflections on the trade-offs between flattening the curve versus personal liberty and socioeconomic disparities are also presented in this paper.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
A March 2020 study found that BVI users more often rely on information channels that summarize information rather than those that provide direct access to the data.
“one of the fndings revealed that BVI users more often rely on information channels that summarize information (e.g., summaries provided by news anchors or sighted relatives) rather than those that provide direct access to the data.”
From The Accessibility of Data Visualizations on the Web for Screen Reader Users: Practices and Experiences During COVID-19 (2023) · cites this paper as [98]
The paper’s sections on pandemic interventions and workforce disruptions discuss COVID-19 measures and economic effects, not how BVI users obtain information. Searches for BVI users, summarized information channels, and direct access to data found no passage addressing the claimed March 2020 finding. (LLM, conf=0.78)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Ferguson, N. M., Laydon, D. J., Nedjati-Gilani, G. L., Imai, N., Ainslie, K. E. C., Baguelin, M., Bhatia, S., Boonyasiri, A., Cucunubá, Z. M., Cuomo-Dannenburg, G., et al. (2020) · Spiral (Imperial College London) · doi:10.25561/77482 · Cited by 3,453 · see citing works
Pandemics Depress the Economy, Public Health Interventions Do Not: Evidence from the 1918 Flu
Correia, S., Luck, S., & Verner, E. (2020) · The Journal of Economic History · doi:10.1017/s0022050722000407 · Cited by 533 · see citing works
Perceived social isolation, evolutionary fitness and health outcomes: a lifespan approach
Hawkley, L. C., & Capitanio, J. P. (2015) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2014.0114 · Cited by 468 · see citing works
Modelling the Economic Impact and Ripple Effects of Disease Outbreaks
Yu, K. D. S., & Aviso, K. B. (2020) · Process Integration and Optimization for Sustainability · doi:10.1007/s41660-020-00113-y · Cited by 119 · see citing works
Orsi, M. J., & Santos, J. R. (2010) · Economic Systems Research · doi:10.1080/09535311003612419 · Cited by 37 · see citing works
Self-citationSuppression and Mitigation Strategies for Control of COVID-19 in New ZealandPreprint
James, A., Hendy, S. C., Plank, M. J., & Steyn, N. (2020) · medRxiv · doi:10.1101/2020.03.26.20044677 · Cited by 37 · see citing works
Santos, J. R., Yip, C., Thekdi, S., & Pagsuyoin, S. A. (2018) · Risk Analysis · doi:10.1111/risa.13186 · Cited by 36 · see citing works
Self-citation
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Risk and resilience in the time of the COVID-19 crisis
Trump, B. D., & Linkov, I. (2020) · Environment Systems and Decisions · doi:10.1007/s10669-020-09781-0 · Cited by 56 · see citing works
The Economic Impact of Lockdowns: A Persistent Inoperability Input-Output Approach
Yu, K. D. S., Aviso, K. B., Santos, J. R., & Tan, R. R. (2020) · Economies · doi:10.3390/economies8040109 · Cited by 49 · see citing works
Self-citationFan, D., Fay Siu, A., Rao, H., Kim, G. S.-H., Vazquez, X., Greco, L., O'Modhrain, S., & Follmer, S. (2023) · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing · doi:10.1145/3557899 · Cited by 46 · see citing works
“Flattening the Curve, for example, was a central public health strategy popular during the early months of the pandemic that used visual graphics to demonstrate the importance of slowing down the spread of the virus [99].”
BackgroundSulaiman, A. H., Sabki, Z. A., Jaafa, M. J., Francis, B., Razali, K. A., Rizal, A. J., Mokhtar, N. H., Juhari, J. A., Zainal, S., & Ng, C. G. (2020) · Healthcare · doi:10.3390/healthcare8030228 · Cited by 40 · see citing works
Santos, J. R. (2020) · Sustainable Production and Consumption · doi:10.1016/j.spc.2020.06.001 · Cited by 40 · see citing works
Self-citationSy, C. L., Aviso, K. B., Cayamanda, C. D., Chiu, A. S. F., Lucas, R. I. G., Promentilla, M. A. B., Razón, L. F., Tan, R. R., Tapia, J. F. D., Torneo, A. R., et al. (2020) · Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy · doi:10.1007/s10098-020-01876-1 · Cited by 22 · see citing works
Effective Communication at Different Phases of COVID-19 Prevention: Roles, Enablers and Barriers
Hanafiah, K. M., Ng, C., & Wan, A. M. (2021) · Viruses · doi:10.3390/v13061058 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
Kaimann, D., & Tanneberg, I. (2021) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0253237 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
Ilangarathna, G. A., Ranasinghe, Y., Weligampola, H., Attygalla, E., Ekanayake, J. B., Yatigammana, S., Pinnawala, M., Godaliyadda, R. I., Herath, V. R., Ekanayake, P., et al. (2022) · Education Sciences · doi:10.3390/educsci12030197 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Uncertainty Analysis of Business Interruption Losses in the Philippines Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic
Santos, J. R., Tapia, J. F. D., Lamberte, A. E., Solis, C. A., Tan, R. R., Aviso, K. B., & Yu, K. D. S. (2022) · Economies · doi:10.3390/economies10080202 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Self-citationJin, J., & Zhou, H. (2023) · Sustainability · doi:10.3390/su15054003 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
Byun, Y. H., Ha, J., Kang, H. J., Park, C., Jung, K., & Yoo, H. (2024) · JCO Global Oncology · doi:10.1200/go.23.00352 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Adopting a Global AMR Target within the Pandemic Instrument Will Act as a Catalyst for Action
Katwyk, S. R. V., Wilson, L. A., Weldon, I., Hoffman, S. J., & Poirier, M. J. P. (2022) · The Journal of Law Medicine & Ethics · doi:10.1017/jme.2022.101 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Policy and public health implications for mental health after the COVID-19 pandemic
Nakimuli‐Mpungu, E., Arango, C., Dandona, R., Ford, T. J., John, A., Jordan, A., Cherop, R., Kola, L., López‐Jaramillo, C., Schuster, A., et al. (2026) · The Lancet Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/s2215-0366(25)00358-x · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Falou, S. E., & Trad, F. S. (2021) · International Conference on Advances in Biomedical Engineering (ICABME) · doi:10.1109/icabme53305.2021.9604861 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Evaluating the COVID-19 impact in Italian regions via multi criteria analysis
Santucci, F., Nobili, M., Faramondi, L., Oliva, G., Mazzà, B., Antonio Scala, A., Ciccozzi, M., & Setola, R. (2023) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0285452 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Uma análise semiótica dos gráficos do achatamento da curva da pandemia da covid-19
Ribeiro, D. M. (2020) · Dispositiva · doi:10.5752/p.2237-9967.2020v9n16p147-167 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Anais do I Congresso Internacional Interdisciplinar da Uningá: Resumos Expandidos
(2022) · Editora UNINGÁ eBooks · doi:10.46311/978-65-80328-02-4
Gonzalez, B. L., Freire, A. C. S., Centro Universitário Ingá – Uningá, M., Bonassoli, V. T., Centro Universitário Ingá – Uningá, M., Teston, A. P. M., Centro Universitário Ingá – Uningá, M., de Mello, J. C. P., Araújo, D. C. D. M., & Centro Universitário Ingá – Uningá, M. (2023) · doi:10.46311/ed.un.20211025293
Anti-pandemic resilience assessment for countries along the Belt and Road route
Zhao, L., Min, M., Huang, X., Qian, Y. P., Zhou, L., & Yang, P. (2023) · Frontiers in Public Health · doi:10.3389/fpubh.2023.1152029
- Authors
- Santos, J.
- Affiliations
- George Washington University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Santos, Joost
- ORCID
- Santos, Joost
- Venue
- Environment Systems and Decisions
- Published
- 2020-05-14
- Volume
- 40
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 185-188
- ISSN
- 0251-1088 (ISSN-L)
- 2194-5403
- 2194-5411
- PMC
- PMC7224345
- OpenAlex
- W3025145884
- Cited by
- 21
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 6
- FWCI
- 3.59
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Environment Systems & Decisions (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (1832635)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Modeling and Simulation › COVID-19 epidemiological studies
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › COVID-19 Prevention and Impact
- Keywords
- flattening the curve, COVID-19 pandemic, non-pharmaceutical interventions, containment measures, mitigation measures, health system capacity, individual liberty, socioeconomic disparities, business closures, quarantine, travel restrictions
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
