Disease modelers at Columbia University estimate that if the United States had started implementing social distancing and lockdown measures one week earlier in March, roughly 36,000 coronavirus deaths could have been prevented.
The first imported case of COVID-19 in the United States was reported on Jan. 20, with community transmission established in the weeks following. Federal social distancing measures, which asked Americans to avoid unnecessary travel and social gatherings, were enacted in the U.S. in mid-March. The researchers estimated that had action been taken even earlier, with cities going on lockdown and people limiting contact with others beginning on March 1, about 83 percent of the country's deaths could have been avoided.
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