Is a COVID19 Quarantine Justified in Chile or USA Right Now?

Rafael Gonzalez Gonzalez; Francisco Munoz; Pablo S Moya; Miguel Kiwi

is the (which was not peer-reviewed) The copyright holder for this preprint Figure 1 shows the COVID-19 burden index for several countries using the data available [8] . The results are consistent with what is expected; the worst affected countries, i.e., Italy, Iran, and Spain score 4.6, 3.6, and 3.6 in the last day considered for this report. UK and Germany are about to reach their limit. Germany has maintained a controlled COVID-19 Burden index for 16 days; that is, it has maintained its health system without collapsing. But 16 days below the burnout limit may be insufficient, if they do not manage to reduce the rate, it spreads urgently. Although the disease is overcome on average in 2 weeks, critically ill patients take between 3 and 6 weeks [9] , so Germany seems still far from overcoming the emergency. The UK case is very worrying because it could collapse very quickly if it does not reduce the rate of infections as soon as 2 or 3 days, or they could face the worst-case scenario. South Korea is on its limit, its healthcare system is fully occupied and strained, but it is copping with the demand. Finally, USA and Chile are steadily approaching the limits of their healthcare systems; in about one week, they might not be able to cope with the demand if they don't reduce the rate of contagion right now. An under/over estimate of the parameters used could mean at most one or two days in reaching the burnout limit. Close to reaching this limit, the fatality of COVID-19 increases drastically, see Fig. 2 .