Forced isolation may be the only way to stop virus recovery


A sign on a truck warns people to stay home in Melbourne on 5 August.

Photographer: William West / AFP via Getty Images

Flare-ups from Australia to Japan show that the world has not learned an early lesson from the coronavirus crisis: to stop the spread, those with mild or asymptomatic coronavirus infections must be forced to isolate themselves from their communities and family.

In Australia, where Victoria State has reported register dead, about 3,000 checks last month on people who should have been isolated at home were found 800 were out and about. In Japan, where the virus raged, people remain at home but are not in isolation: 40% of elderly patients become ill from family members in the same apartments.

Failure to effectively manage infected people with mild to no symptoms is a driving factor behind some of the worst resurgenes in the world. But lessons from Italy, South Korea and others that have successfully contained large-scale outbreaks show that there is a tried and tested approach to cutting out transmission: they move out of their homes to centralized facilities while overcoming their infections, which normally takes no longer than a few weeks.

“A laissez-faire approach that naively believes that everyone is responsible has been shown to be ineffective, because there will always be a share that will break the conditions of isolation,” said Jeremy Lim, adjunct professor at the Saw Swee of the National University of Singapore Hock School of Public Health.

Dealing with a new cluster this week after 102 days without a locally transferred case, New Zealand has quickly implemented this strategy, placing 17 people – including two children under the age of 10 – in centralized quarantine.

But other countries dealing with persistent proliferation such as Australia and the US do not pursue the policy broadly, despite their proven track record. Their unwillingness – as inability – to do so underscores the challenges facing liberal democracies, whose populations are less likely to tolerate measures that require individual sacrifice for the greater good.

Not at home

The existence of a large group of carriers that barely to feel disease is a unique feature of the coronavirus crisis, and an important factor that has driven its rapid spread throughout the world. Unlike previous outbreaks such as the 2003 SARS epidemic, many infected people do not to feel sick enough to stay home, and so the pathogen spreads widely as they go about their daily lives.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has It is estimated that 40% of Covid-19 infections are asymptomatic.

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