What Is Required to Prevent a Second Major Outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 upon Lifting Quarantine in Wuhan City, China.

BACKGROUND

The Chinese government implemented a metropolitan-wide quarantine of Wuhan city on 23 January 2020 to curb the epidemic of the coronavirus COVID-19. Lifting of this quarantine is imminent. We modelled the effects of two key health interventions on the epidemic when the quarantine is lifted.

METHODS

We constructed a compartmental dynamic model to forecast the trend of the COVID-19 epidemic at different quarantine lifting dates and investigated the impact of different rates of public contact and facial mask usage on the epidemic.

RESULTS

We projected a declining trend of the COVID-19 epidemic if the current quarantine strategy continues, and Wuhan would record the last new confirmed cases in late April 2020. At the end of the epidemic, 65,733 (45,722-99,015) individuals would be infected by the virus, among which 16,166 (11,238-24,603, 24.6%) were through public contacts, 45,996 (31,892-69,565, 69.7%) through household contact, and 3,571 (2,521-5,879, 5.5%) through hospital contacts (including 778 (553-1,154) non-COVID-19 patients and 2,786 (1,969-4,791) medical staff). A total of 2,821 (1,634-6,361) would die of COVID-19 related pneumonia in Wuhan. Early quarantine lifting on 21 March is viable only if Wuhan residents sustain a high facial mask usage of ≥85% and a pre-quarantine level public contact rate. Delaying city resumption to mid/late April would relax the requirement of facial mask usage to ≥75% at the same contact rate.

CONCLUSIONS

The prevention of a second epidemic is viable after the metropolitan-wide quarantine is lifted but requires a sustaining high facial mask usage and a low public contact rate.