Global versus focused isolation during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic-A cost-effectiveness analysis

Amir Shlomai; Ari Leshno; Ella H Sklan; Moshe Leshno

Strict isolation of all infected individuals and a 14-day relaxed isolation for all the individuals who are at high-risk of exposure. These individuals will be repeatedly tested using PCR every three days. Under this strategy, only the high risk group will be quarantined, while most of the susceptible population will go back to the workforce. The specific individuals that are at high-risk of contact with infected or carrier subjects will be located using detailed epidemiological tracing and/or using mobile phone and satellite technology. In addition, extensive PCR testing will identify carriers and infected individuals within the population and will prevent unnecessary isolation of non-infected individuals. Subjects with two sequential negative PCR results will be removed back into the workforce. We estimated that the length of isolation in the high risk population will decrease from two weeks to an average of 7 days which is within the range of the average incubation period (6) (7) (8) .