Policy Review and Modeling Analysis of Mitigation Measures for Coronavirus Disease Epidemic Control, Health System, and Disease Burden, South Korea

Autor: Prashanth Selvaraj, Jeong-Yeon Seon, Jae Seok Park, Jacob Lee, Woo-Hwi Jeon, Anna Bershteyn, Scott Braithwaite, Seung Heon Lee, Niket Thakkar, Daniel B. Klein, In-Hwan Oh, Hae-Young Kim, Sung-Il Nam, Jessica B. McGillen
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: Emerging Infectious Diseases
Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol 27, Iss 11, Pp 2753-2760 (2021)
ISSN: 1080-6059
1080-6040
DOI: 10.3201/eid2711.203779
Popis: We reviewed the timeline of key policies for control of the coronavirus disease epidemic and determined their impact on the epidemic and hospital burden in South Korea. Using a discrete stochastic transmission model, we estimated that multilevel policies, including extensive testing, contact tracing, and quarantine, reduced contact rates by 90% and rapidly decreased the epidemic in Daegu and nationwide during February‒March 2020. Absence of these prompt responses could have resulted in a >10-fold increase in infections, hospitalizations, and deaths by May 15, 2020, relative to the status quo. The model suggests that reallocation of persons who have mild or asymptomatic cases to community treatment centers helped avoid overwhelming hospital capacity and enabled healthcare workers to provide care for more severely and critically ill patients in hospital beds and negative-pressure intensive care units. As small outbreaks continue to occur, contact tracing and maintenance of hospital capacity are needed.
Databáze: OpenAIRE