Cul-De-Sac Effect

Our house
It has a crowd
There's always something happening
And it's usually quite loud
--Madness

Soon after states began to issue lockdown orders, an academic from Yale penned a NYT editorial using a war analogy. Waging an open war against the virus using across-the-board lockdown strategies risked broad collateral damage. He suggested that a 'surgical strike' might be more in order--one that protects the elderly and other at-risk groups while letting those not at significant risk resume their lives to prevent economic collapse.

Two months later his words remain wise.

He also expressed concern that, by sending families home to huddle amongst themselves for extended periods of time, risk of transmitting the virus might grow within those groups.

I've labeled this the cul-de-sac effect. When we leave our homes each morning, we enter into a cross hatched open network where we interact with many people for relatively short periods of time. At the end of the day we retreat to a cul-de-sac--a closed network of fewer, more intimate contacts.

Shutting down didn’t work: 66% of New York coronavirus hospitalizations are people at HOME https://t.co/9iqOYp6TFD via @MailOnline

— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) May 8, 2020

There is growing evidence that the cul-de-sac is in fact a major source of COVID infection. For example, data from New York indicate that most of the current COVID-19 hospitalizations in the state are coming from people who were staying at home.

Then, of course, there are nursing home and long term care cul-de-sacs that, when not properly secured, have become death traps for the elderly.

While potentially increasing exposure to infection, cul-de-sacs can also decrease resistance to them. If people are forced to remain in the cul-de-sacs by stay at home orders, then they will get less sunshine Vitamin D exposure and be more sedentary. Weakened immune systems are less capable of fighting infections of any type.

Indeed, the cul-de-sac effect may help explain why there is little evidence that lockdowns have been effective at curtailing COVID mortality.