Quarantine centres better than self-isolation for halting coronavirus, experts say
- Isolating at home is too reliant on personal compliance, study finds
- ‘Fangcang’ isolation shelters built in Wuhan, China’s initial epicentre, were more effective in cutting transmissions
A simulation model was created to predict transmission of the virus using home and institutional approaches in a city of 4 million people, based on Singapore.
The results suggested that home-based quarantine reduced an infected person’s contact with other people by 50 per cent in the home and 75 per cent in the community, whereas institution-based isolation reduced contact by 75 per cent in the household and 90 per cent in the community. The findings were published last Wednesday in medical journal The Lancet.
“These results show the need for institution-based isolation to reduce household and community transmission,” said the report’s lead writer Borame Dickens and public health experts from the National University of Singapore and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
“We urge policymakers in countries with or facing overburdened health care facilities to consider such measures as countries emerge from lockdowns.”