Scientific Reports published our article on Covid-19 social-strategies today. The key result of this exploratory simulation study indicates an almost exponential relationship between intensity of Covid-19 countermeasures and required duration of measure application. As a result, countries whose policy is exclusively aimed at minimizing the number of cases are in danger of experiencing an untimely and crises-enforced termination of countermeasures associated with a large second wave of outbreaks.

Data on governmental response stringency and daily confirmed deaths support this hypothesis. Countries who were successful in suppressing the first wave by intensive countermeasures experience large second waves. At present, this particularly applies to East European and Southeast European countries as well as parts of the Middle East.

We recommend that non-pharmaceutical interventions should be moderate, long-term and well balanced against capability limits of national health-care systems.