On Jun. 8, 2020, emergency health measures implemented in six major countries have ‘significantly and substantially slowed’ the spread of the novel coronavirus, according to research from a UC Berkeley team published in the journal Nature. The findings come as leaders worldwide struggle to balance the enormous and highly visible economic costs of emergency health measures against their public health benefits, which are difficult to see.

In the first peer-reviewed analysis of local, regional and national policies, the researchers found that travel restrictions, business and school closures, shelter-in-place orders and other non-pharmaceutical interventions averted roughly 530 million COVID-19 infections across the six countries in the study period ending April 6. Of these infections, 62 million would likely have been “confirmed cases,” given limited testing in each country.

To date, global cases are nearing 7 million, with just over 400,000 dead. But the UC Berkeley research suggests that the toll would have been vastly worse without policy interventions.