Estimating cost-benefit of quarantine length for Covid-19 mitigation

Andreas Eilersen; Kim Sneppen

Using reasonable COVID-19 infection parameters we find that the 1STQ strategy can contribute to epidemic mitigation, in the sense that it can reduce the peak number of infected individuals by about a factor 2 with realistic testing rates. This was illustrated systematically in fig. 3 . The main cost was people in self-quarantine and not contributing to the workforce. In comparison one has to consider that a society-wide lockdown with similar reduction in peak height would have to last for about 100 days (see fig. 2 ). Thus, the lockdown would require of order 100 days of quarantine (or at least extensive social distancing) per person, whereas testing and isolation only requires on average around 20 days per person with a 14-day quarantine (with a 5-day quarantine, it is only slightly more than five days). Importantly these numbers can be reduced if people are able to lower their number of contacts.