{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,28]],"date-time":"2026-02-28T04:23:24Z","timestamp":1772252604420,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":33,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"11","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,11,18]],"date-time":"2021-11-18T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1637193600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Entropy"],"abstract":"<jats:p>We present an analysis of the relationship between SARS-CoV-2 infection rates and a social distancing metric from data for all the states and most populous cities in the United States and Brazil, all the 22 European Economic Community countries and the United Kingdom. We discuss why the infection rate, instead of the effective reproduction number or growth rate of cases, is a proper choice to perform this analysis when considering a wide span of time. We obtain a strong Spearman\u2019s rank order correlation between the social distancing metric and the infection rate in each locality. We show that mask mandates increase the values of Spearman\u2019s correlation in the United States, where a mandate was adopted. We also obtain an explicit numerical relation between the infection rate and the social distancing metric defined in the present work.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/e23111530","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,11,18]],"date-time":"2021-11-18T08:53:56Z","timestamp":1637225636000},"page":"1530","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":4,"title":["A Transnational and Transregional Study of the Impact and Effectiveness of Social Distancing for COVID-19 Mitigation"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"23","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7865-4085","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Tarc\u00edsio M. Rocha","family":"Filho","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Instituto de F\u00edsica and International Center for Condensed Matter Physics, Campus Universit\u00e1rio Darcy Ribeiro, Universidade de Bras\u00edlia, Asa Norte, Bras\u00edlia 70919-970, Brazil"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0051-6309","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Marcelo A.","family":"Moret","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Gest\u00e3o e Tecnologia Industrial (PPG), Centro Universit\u00e1rio SENAI CIMATEC, Salvador 41650-010, Brazil"},{"name":"Senai CIMATEC, Universidade do Estado da Bahia\u2014UNEB, Salvador 41150-000, Brazil"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4707-5945","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jos\u00e9 F. F.","family":"Mendes","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Departamento de F\u00edsica & I3N, Universidade de Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,11,18]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"John Hopkins University (2021, September 04). John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Available online: https:\/\/coronavirus.jhu.edu\/map.html."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1016\/j.physrep.2021.02.001","article-title":"Non-pharmaceutical interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic: A review","volume":"913","author":"Perra","year":"2021","journal-title":"Phys. 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