key: cord-0695631-3tipg0ym
authors: Shen, Mingwang; Peng, Zhihang; Guo, Yuming; Rong, Libin; Li, Yan; Xiao, Yanni; Zhuang, Guihua; Zhang, Lei
title: Assessing the Effects of Metropolitan-Wide Quarantine on the Spread of COVID-19 in Public Space and Households
date: 2020-05-08
journal: International journal of infectious diseases : IJID : official publication of the International Society for Infectious Diseases
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijid.2020.05.019
sha: 8b5991057bce87b5294093f8d45e41e5ce075b04
doc_id: 695631
cord_uid: 3tipg0ym

Abstract Hubei province in China has completed cycle of quarantine-resumption in 23rd Janauary and 8th April 2020, providing a unique opportunity as for now to assess its intervention impact and the pattern of SARS-COV-2 transmission during the quarantine period. In this study, we evaluate the impact of the metropolitan-wide quarantine on the trend and transmission route of the COVID-19 epidemic in Hubei, China. The intervention reduces more than 70% of new infections in both households and the public space, as well as the deaths caused by COVID-19 pneumonia. Household transmission is the dominant route of disease spread regardless of quarantine. This will provide important evidence and scientific insights to other worldwide countries that are currently under quarantine.

We collected data on the number of cumulative confirmed cases and deaths from 15 th January 95 2020 to 8 th April 2020 from the Health Commission of Hubei Province [3] (Table S1) . We (Figure 1, Figure S4 ). If the quarantine had never been in place, the COVID-19 epidemic We estimated that the metropolitan-wide quarantine strategy implemented in Hubei province 126 might have reduced more than 70% of epidemic compared with the absence of the quarantine.

This is consistent with previous evaluations based on various modelling approaches [7] . This study has several limitations. First, we model the effects of metropolitan-wide 141 quarantine with a reduction in the effective contact rate. We cannot distinguish whether the 142 effects were due to media reports and voluntary isolation. Second, we assumed 100% 143 adherence to the social distancing policy during the quarantine, which may not be the case in We concluded that the metropolitan-wide quarantine in Hubei has greatly reduced the number 155 of new infections in the public space and, consequently, in households.

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All authors declare that they have no competing interests. 

Waived, since all data utilized are publicly available.Authors' contributions M.S. and L.Z. conceived and designed the study. M.S. analyzed the data, carried out the analysis and performed numerical simulations. M.S. wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All the authors contributed to writing the paper and agreed with manuscript results and conclusions.