Modeling the COVID-19 outbreaks and the effectiveness of the containment measures adopted across countries

Edward De Brouwer; Daniele Raimondi; Yves Moreau

If a treatment became available that would greatly diminish the risk of complications (for example, by a factor 10), or if it turns out that the proportion of the general population that develops severe complications when infected by SARS-CoV-2 is much lower than 2%, it might be possible to revisit strategies based on "flattening the curve". In the absence of such a silver bullet treatment, the only plausible option for the moment seems to be the immediate quashing of the epidemic together with the development of strategies to try to contain the disease at a minimal level driven by imported cases, while waiting for greatly improved treatments or a vaccine. In such strategies, as currently deployed by South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore for example, patients only arise from imported cases and small local clusters that are rapidly quashed. It is likely that such strategies will sometimes fail in insufficiently prepared populations leading to the reimposing of heavy quarantine measures during the time needed to quash the new epidemic flare. It seems advisable to reimpose strict quarantine measures as soon as uncontrolled local circulation of the disease is suspected.