Emergency measures -- including shelter-in-place, business closings, and travel bans -- prevented about 60 million COVID-19 infections in the United States and 285 million in China, according to a new study led by public policy professor Solomon Hsiang, director of Berkeley's Global Policy Laboratory. Since so many people who become infected never get tested or diagnosed, the true number of cases avoided is much higher, and they estimate that figure in the six countries they studied to be more like 530 million. "Without these policies employed, we would have lived through a very different April and May," Professor Hsiang says. The study examined how China, the United States, France, Italy, Iran and South Korea responded to the pandemic. "The disease was spreading at a really extraordinary rate that is rare even among very infectious diseases," Professor Hsiang says, crediting the global response for "saving more lives in a shorter period of time than ever before." Timing is all-important, the researchers found, with delayed implementation leading to "dramatically different health outcomes." For more on this, see our press release at Berkeley News. Stories on this topic have appeared in hundreds of sources around the world, including CNN, U.S. News & World Report, Bloomberg Law (link to audio), and KPIX TV (link to video).