The Effectiveness of Targeted Quarantine for Minimising Impact of COVID-19

Alastair D Jamieson-Lane; Eric Cytrnbaum

There are a number of research avenues that may improve upon the outcomes we have described. We have considered a simple age structured population; this was driven primarily by the availability of age structured ICU risk data. With better understanding of the underlying health conditions associated with severe COVID-19 outcomes, and better demographic data on the frequency of these risks, it will be possible to pre-isolate high risk individuals in our under 50 age cohort, and simultaneously, reduce quarantine requirements for individuals over 50 who have a clean bill of health. We assumed a "predetermined" epidemic response strategy. Future developments in serological testing would allow more dynamic strategies to be adopted, based on weekly testing of antibody levels in the population; decisions on quarantine measures could then be made based on observed immunity levels in the population, rather than simply occurring at three month intervals. Such screening and feedback would greatly mitigate the various uncertainties in the model. Finally, although here we have considered age-targeted quarantine approaches as they apply to the population of New Zealand, this was merely for the sake of concreteness; nothing in the approach described is specific to that country.