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Alternating quarantine for sustainable epidemic mitigation

Author

Listed:
  • Dror Meidan

    (Bar-Ilan University)

  • Nava Schulmann

    (Politecnico di Milano
    MIMESIS, Inria)

  • Reuven Cohen

    (Bar-Ilan University)

  • Simcha Haber

    (Bar-Ilan University)

  • Eyal Yaniv

    (Graduate School of Business Administration, Bar-Ilan University)

  • Ronit Sarid

    (Faculty of Life Sciences & Institute of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials, Bar-Ilan University)

  • Baruch Barzel

    (Bar-Ilan University
    Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University)

Abstract

Absent pharmaceutical interventions, social distancing, lock-downs and mobility restrictions remain our prime response in the face of epidemic outbreaks. To ease their potentially devastating socioeconomic consequences, we propose here an alternating quarantine strategy: at every instance, half of the population remains under lockdown while the other half continues to be active - maintaining a routine of weekly succession between activity and quarantine. This regime minimizes infectious interactions, as it allows only half of the population to interact for just half of the time. As a result it provides a dramatic reduction in transmission, comparable to that achieved by a population-wide lockdown, despite sustaining socioeconomic continuity at ~50% capacity. The weekly alternations also help address the specific challenge of COVID-19, as their periodicity synchronizes with the natural SARS-CoV-2 disease time-scales, allowing to effectively isolate the majority of infected individuals precisely at the time of their peak infection.

Suggested Citation

  • Dror Meidan & Nava Schulmann & Reuven Cohen & Simcha Haber & Eyal Yaniv & Ronit Sarid & Baruch Barzel, 2021. "Alternating quarantine for sustainable epidemic mitigation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-12, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-20324-8
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-20324-8
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    Cited by:

    1. Reyna-Lara, Adriana & Soriano-Paños, David & Arenas, Alex & Gómez-Gardeñes, Jesús, 2022. "The interconnection between independent reactive control policies drives the stringency of local containment," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    2. Xiyun Zhang & Zhongyuan Ruan & Muhua Zheng & Jie Zhou & Stefano Boccaletti & Baruch Barzel, 2022. "Epidemic spreading under mutually independent intra- and inter-host pathogen evolution," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-13, December.
    3. Hausmann, Ricardo & Schetter, Ulrich, 2022. "Horrible trade-offs in a pandemic: Poverty, fiscal space, policy, and welfare," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    4. Khan, Md. Mamun-Ur-Rashid & Arefin, Md. Rajib & Tanimoto, Jun, 2022. "Investigating the trade-off between self-quarantine and forced quarantine provisions to control an epidemic: An evolutionary approach," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 432(C).

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