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Is compulsory home quarantine less effective than centralized quarantine in controlling the COVID-19 outbreak? Evidence from Hong Kong

Faced with the global spread of COVID-19, the Hong Kong government imposed compulsory home quarantine on all overseas arrivals, while cities in mainland China and Macau adopted a more stringent centralized quarantine approach. This study evaluates the effectiveness of compulsory home quarantine as a...

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Autores principales: Zhu, Pengyu, Tan, Xinying
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8327569/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34367885
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2021.103222
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author Zhu, Pengyu
Tan, Xinying
author_facet Zhu, Pengyu
Tan, Xinying
author_sort Zhu, Pengyu
collection PubMed
description Faced with the global spread of COVID-19, the Hong Kong government imposed compulsory home quarantine on all overseas arrivals, while cities in mainland China and Macau adopted a more stringent centralized quarantine approach. This study evaluates the effectiveness of compulsory home quarantine as a means of pandemic control. Combining epidemiological data with traditional socioeconomic and meteorological data from over 250 cities, we employ the Synthetic Control Method (SCM) to construct a counterfactual “synthetic Hong Kong”. This model simulates the infection trends for a hypothetical situation in which HK adopts centralized quarantine measures, and compares them to actual infection numbers. Results suggest that home quarantine would have been less effective than centralized quarantine initially. However, the infection rate under home quarantine later converges with the counterfactual estimate under centralized quarantine (0.136% vs. 0.174%), suggesting similar efficacy in the later phase of implementation. Considering its minimal reliance on public resources, home quarantine with heightened enforcement may therefore be preferable to centralized quarantine in countries with limited public health resources. Home quarantine as a quarantine alternative balances public protection and individual freedom, while conserving resources, making it a more sustainable option for many cities.
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spelling pubmed-83275692021-08-02 Is compulsory home quarantine less effective than centralized quarantine in controlling the COVID-19 outbreak? Evidence from Hong Kong Zhu, Pengyu Tan, Xinying Sustain Cities Soc Article Faced with the global spread of COVID-19, the Hong Kong government imposed compulsory home quarantine on all overseas arrivals, while cities in mainland China and Macau adopted a more stringent centralized quarantine approach. This study evaluates the effectiveness of compulsory home quarantine as a means of pandemic control. Combining epidemiological data with traditional socioeconomic and meteorological data from over 250 cities, we employ the Synthetic Control Method (SCM) to construct a counterfactual “synthetic Hong Kong”. This model simulates the infection trends for a hypothetical situation in which HK adopts centralized quarantine measures, and compares them to actual infection numbers. Results suggest that home quarantine would have been less effective than centralized quarantine initially. However, the infection rate under home quarantine later converges with the counterfactual estimate under centralized quarantine (0.136% vs. 0.174%), suggesting similar efficacy in the later phase of implementation. Considering its minimal reliance on public resources, home quarantine with heightened enforcement may therefore be preferable to centralized quarantine in countries with limited public health resources. Home quarantine as a quarantine alternative balances public protection and individual freedom, while conserving resources, making it a more sustainable option for many cities. The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. 2021-11 2021-08-02 /pmc/articles/PMC8327569/ /pubmed/34367885 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2021.103222 Text en © 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Article
Zhu, Pengyu
Tan, Xinying
Is compulsory home quarantine less effective than centralized quarantine in controlling the COVID-19 outbreak? Evidence from Hong Kong
title Is compulsory home quarantine less effective than centralized quarantine in controlling the COVID-19 outbreak? Evidence from Hong Kong
title_full Is compulsory home quarantine less effective than centralized quarantine in controlling the COVID-19 outbreak? Evidence from Hong Kong
title_fullStr Is compulsory home quarantine less effective than centralized quarantine in controlling the COVID-19 outbreak? Evidence from Hong Kong
title_full_unstemmed Is compulsory home quarantine less effective than centralized quarantine in controlling the COVID-19 outbreak? Evidence from Hong Kong
title_short Is compulsory home quarantine less effective than centralized quarantine in controlling the COVID-19 outbreak? Evidence from Hong Kong
title_sort is compulsory home quarantine less effective than centralized quarantine in controlling the covid-19 outbreak? evidence from hong kong
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8327569/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34367885
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2021.103222
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