Abstract
How long should we self-isolate at home to diminish the threat of COVID-19? This is a question that billions of people are wondering early 2020 due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. This virus can produce a severe pneumonia that has killed over 160,000 people so far, was detected for the first time late 2019 in Wuhan (China), and has spread all over the world due, in part, to the difficulty of detecting and isolating asymptomatic or mild-symptomatic cases. In this paper, we explore how long suppression strategies (i.e., home confinement and social distancing) must be put into practice in highly populated cities to reduce the chances that a quick rebound of COVID-19 cases occur again over the next months. This is explored, using New York City (USA), San Francisco (USA), and Madrid (Spain) as case studies, through a simple but realistic Monte Carlo stochastic model that takes into account that part of the undetected infected individuals remain in circulation propagating the virus. Our simulations reflect that, if suppression strategies are not properly applied, they can be counterproductive because there are high chances that the confinement time has to be lengthened without reducing the total number of infections. We also estimate that, in the most conservative scenario and under the model assumptions, home confinement is effective if applied at least ~110 days in New York City, ~80 days in San Francisco, and ~70 days in Madrid, i.e., until mid-July 2020, early June 2020, and late May 2020, respectively.
Highlights
COVID-19 pneumonia, produced by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, has become a global public threat a few months after several cases were reported late 2019 in Wuhan, China [1,2,3,4,5,6]
How long should suppression strategies last to be effective, i.e., to avoid quick rebounds in the transmission once interventions are relaxed? How does the effective intervention time depend on the mobility restrictions imposed to the population and social interaction? Addressing these questions is fundamental to minimize healthcare and societal stress during a pandemic crisis; in addition, estimating effective confinement times will help policy makers to forecast the impact of COVID-19 on economy, and make timely decisions
The epidemic of COVID-19 spreads quickly due, in part, to the difficulty of detecting and isolating asymptomatic or mildsymptomatic cases, a factor that must be taken into account to forecast the evolution of the outbreak
Summary
COVID-19 pneumonia, produced by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, has become a global public threat a few months after several cases were reported late 2019 in Wuhan, China [1,2,3,4,5,6]. COVID-19 is highly contagious, having produced >3,000,000 confirmed infections and >230,000 fatalities in >200 countries/areas/territories as of 30 April 2020, accompanied by a sharp decrease in economic and societal activity all over the world [8]. This caused the World Health Organization to classify COVID-19 as a pandemic on 11 March 2020 [9], and several international leaders to describe this disease as the main challenge facing humanity since World War II.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
