Increased Detection coupled with Social Distancing and Health Capacity Planning Reduce the Burden of COVID-19 Cases and Fatalities: A Proof of Concept Study using a Stochastic Computational Simulation Model

Pramit Ghosh; Salah Basheer; Sandip Paul; Partha Chakrabarti; Jit Sarkar

Responding to any epidemic ideally involves the following steps of anticipation, early detection, control & mitigation, containment, elimination or eradication [18] . With the present pandemic of SARS-CoV-2 the global scientific community is still grappling for evidence based, cost effective & sustainable interventions. The best strategy to address the pandemic would only be understood in retrospect, once the storm has blown over. Presently every country is battling, using fundamental process of problem solving 'trial & error' method in the middle of the pandemic. Intelligence sharing with quality data management across the countries and globe would help the cause. Different countries are apparently in different stages of the pandemic; distribution, transmission and outcomes are not uniform for all the countries. Daily confirmed cases vary from 3/million in India to 2816/million population in Spain. Death rates, age and sex distribution, severity pattern are also not same everywhere [19] . The only pattern remaining constant since its inception is the upward curve of the cases in almost all the countries. Given the diabolical nature of the pandemic with prevailing uncertainty over the natural history of the disease and absence of a specific cure or vaccine, panic and anxiety over the disease is ever increasing. In this context do we propose that key to success lies in the detection of cases at the earliest. Even though we do not have a specific pharmacotherapy as yet, non pharmaceutical interventions in addition to that would help to mitigate the situation. Case detection and tracking of the close contacts followed by immediate quarantine measures will eventually help in breaking the chain of transmission.