Strong correlations between power-law growth of COVID-19 in four continents and the inefficiency of soft quarantine strategies

Manchein, Cesar; Brugnago, Eduardo L.; Silva, Rafael M. da; Mendes, Carlos F. O.; Beims, Marcus W.

In this work we analyse the growth of the cumulative number of confirmed infected cases by the COVID-19 until March 27th, 2020, from countries of Asia, Europe, North and South America. Our results show (i) that power-law growth is observed for all countries; (ii) that the distance correlation of the power-law curves between countries are statistically highly correlated, showing the universality of such curves around the World; and (iii) that soft quarantine strategies are inefficient to flatten the growth curves. Furthermore, we present a model and strategies which allow the government to reach the flattening in the power-law curves. We found that, besides the social isolation of individuals, of well known relevance, the strategy of identifying and isolating infected individuals could be of more relevance to flatten the power-laws. These are essentially the strategies used in the Republic of Korea. In fact, our results suggest that the allowed balance between social isolation and degrees of isolation of infected individuals can be used to prevent economic catastrophes. The high correlation between the power-law curves of different countries strongly suggest that the government containment measures can be applied with success around the whole World. These measures must be scathing and applied as soon as possible.