Social distancing one week earlier could have saved 36,000 US lives: study

The U.S. could have avoided nearly 36,000 deaths caused by the coronavirus through early May if stay-at-home orders and other social-distancing restrictions were implemented just one week earlier, a new study from Columbia University researchers shows. The study, which focused on transmission in metropolitan areas, found that social-distancing measures adopted throughout the nation after March 15 “effectively reduced rates of COVID-19…