Social distancing strategies for curbing the COVID-19 epidemic

Stephen M Kissler; Christine Tedijanto; Marc Lipsitch; Yonatan Grad

One-time social distancing efforts will push the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic peak into the autumn, potentially exacerbating the load on critical care resources if there is increased wintertime transmissibility. Intermittent social distancing can maintain critical care demand within current thresholds, but widespread surveillance will be required to time the distancing measures correctly and avoid overshooting critical care capacity. New therapeutics, vaccines, or other interventions such as aggressive contact tracing and quarantine -impractical now in many places but more practical once case numbers have been reduced and testing scaled up (20)could alleviate the need for stringent social distancing to maintain control of the epidemic. In the absence of such interventions, surveillance and intermittent distancing may need to be maintained into 2022, which would present a substantial social and economic burden. To shorten the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic and ensure adequate care for the critically ill, increasing critical care capacity and developing additional interventions are urgent priorities.