Estimating the Efficacy of Quarantine and Traffic Blockage for the Epidemic Caused by 2019-nCoV (COVID-19):A Simulation Analysis

  1. Deqiang Li
  2. Zhicheng Liu
  3. Qinghe Liu
  4. Zefei Gao
  5. Junkai Zhu
  6. Junyan Yang
  7. Qiao Wang

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Abstract

Background

Since the 2019-nCoV (COVID-19) outbreaks in Wuhan, China, the cumulative number of confirmed cases is increasing every day, and a large number of populations all over the world are at risk. The quarantine and traffic blockage can alleviate the risk of the epidemic and the infections, henceforth evaluating the efficacy of such actions is essential to inform policy makers and raise the public awareness of the importance of self-isolation and quarantine.

Method

We collected confirmed case data and the migration data, and introduced the quarantine factor and traffic blockage factor to the Flow-SEIR model. By varying the quarantine factor and traffic blockage factor, we simulated the change of the peak number and arrival time of infections, then the efficacy of these two intervation measures can be analyzed in our simulation. In our study, the self-protection at home is also included in quarantine.

Results

In the simulated results, the quarantine and traffic blockage are effective for epidemic control. For Hubei province, the current quarantine factor is estimaed to be 0.405, which means around 40.5% of suceptibles who are close contacting with are in quarantine, and the current traffic blockage factor is estimaed to be 0.66, which indicates around 34% of suceptibles who had flowed out from Hubei. For the other provinces outside Hubei, the current quarantine factor is estimated to be 0.285, and the current traffic blockage factor is estimated to be 0.26. With the quarantine and traffic blockage factor increasing, the number of infections decrease dramatically. We also simulated the start dates of quarantine and traffic blockage at four time points, the simulated results show that the early of warning is also effective for epidemic containing. However, provincial level traffic blockage can only alleviate 21.06% - 22.38% of the peak number of infections. In general, the quarantine is much more effective than the traffic blockage control.

Conclusion

Both of quarantine and traffic blockage are effective ways to control the spread of COVID-19. However, the eff icacy of quarantine is found to be much stronger than that of traffic blockage. Considering traffic blockage may also cause huge losses of economy, we propose to gradually deregulate the traffic blockage, and improve quarantine instead. Also, there might be a large number of asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19, the quarantine should be continued for a long time until the epidemic is totally under control.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.02.14.20022913: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    However, our study has several major limitations. First, the accuracy of results can be improved provided the source of data is more reliable and sufficient. Since in Hubei the medical resources are overburdened and the methods to diagnose the COVID-9 are not accurate, even the diagnosis changed several times, the underdiagnosis and misdiagnosis are invetiable, then the confirmed cases are underestimated. Secondly, there is heterogenity in transmission, it is not added in our study, and we also did not district the age distribution in our model. The study has numerically estimated the efficacy of traffic blockage and quarantine. We confirm by simulated quantification evidence that the traffic blockage is effective in controlling the epidemic of COVID-19, and the quarantine is a more effective way to help the public to prevent cross-infection. With the development of the epidemic, we have to admit the fact that there are still a number of population who are exposed to the COVID-19 without clinical symptoms [18-20]. Those population may carry the COVID-19 for several days and might infect others who are closely contacting with, which makes the potentional risk. Thus we encourage the people to be self-protective until the epidemic is totally under control.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.02.14.20022913v3 on medRxiv
  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.02.14.20022913v2 on medRxiv
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