Isolation, quarantine, social distancing and community containment: pivotal role for old-style public health measures in the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak
Annelies Wilder‐Smitha b✉, David O. Freedmanc
- aDepartment of Disease Control, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel St, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HT, UK
- bHeidelberg Institute of Global Health, University of Heidelberg, Seminarstraße 2, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
- cUniversity of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA
- ✉Corresponding author
Papers open inside SciRah from the original publisher or repository; SciRah never hosts them.
Abstract
Public health measures were decisive in controlling the SARS epidemic in 2003. Isolation is the separation of ill persons from non-infected persons. Quarantine is movement restriction, often with fever surveillance, of contacts when it is not evident whether they have been infected but are not yet symptomatic or have not been infected. Community containment includes measures that range from increasing social distancing to community-wide quarantine. Whether these measures will be sufficient to control 2019-nCoV depends on addressing some unanswered questions.
TL;DRPublic health measures were decisive in controlling the SARS epidemic in 2003 but whether these measures will be sufficient to control 2019-nCoV depends on addressing some unanswered questions. (Semantic Scholar)