Isolation, quarantine, social distancing and community containment: pivotal role for old-style public health measures in the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak

Abstract

The novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) that emerged in Wuhan, China in December 2019 quickly spread within Hubei province and has now reached all provinces in China and was exported to >20 countries by 30 January 2020. 2019-nCoV is thought to be primarily transmitted by respiratory droplets with a similar incubation time and generation time as SARS coronavirus (SARSCoV).1,2 SARS was frightening at the time, maybe even more frightening compared to 2019-nCoV (now renamed COVID-19) given its much more frequent progression to severe disease and death. But the world was able to completely interrupt humanto-human transmission, halt the epidemic and SARS-CoV is now eradicated. In the absence of vaccines and antivirals, this remarkable achievement was only possible because of rigorous implementation of traditional public health measures.