Background
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by a new virus that has spread quickly throughout the world. Most infected people either experience no symptoms or suffer mild, flu-like symptoms, but some become seriously ill, and may die.
There is no vaccine (a medicine that stops people catching a specific disease) for COVID-19, so other ways of slowing its spread are needed. One way of controlling the disease is quarantine. This means separating healthy people from other healthy people, who may have the virus after being in close contact with an infected person, or because they have returned from an area with high infection rates. Similar recommendations include isolation (like quarantine, but for people who tested positive for COVID-19) and physical distancing (people without symptoms keep a distance from each other).
What did we want to find out?
We wanted to find out whether and how effectively quarantine stops COVID-19 spreading and if it prevents death. We wanted to know if it was more effective when combined with other measures, and how much it costs.
Study characteristics
COVID-19 is spreading rapidly, so we needed to answer these questions as quickly as possible. This meant we shortened some steps of the normal Cochrane Review process. Nevertheless, we are confident that these changes do not affect our overall conclusions.
We looked for studies that assessed the effect of any type of quarantine, anywhere, on the spread and severity of COVID-19. We also looked for studies that assessed quarantine alongside other measures, such as isolation, physical distancing or school closures. COVID-19 is a new disease, so, to find as much evidence as possible, we also looked for studies on similar viruses, such as SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome).
Studies measured the number of COVID-19, SARS or MERS cases, how many people were infected, how quickly the virus spread, how many people died, and the costs of quarantine.
Key results
We included 51 studies. Thirty-two studies focused on COVID-19, 14 on SARS, three on SARS plus other viruses, and two on MERS. Most studies combined existing data from multiple sources and assumptions to create a model (a simulation) for predicting how events might occur over time, for people in different situations (called modelling studies). Four COVID-19 studies observed the effects of quarantine (observational studies) on 6064 individuals in China, Greece and Singapore. Twenty-eight COVID-19 studies simulated outbreaks in Algeria, China, Canada, Italy, Kazakhstan, Nepal, UK, USA, Singapore, South Korea, on the cruise ship Diamond Princess, and in a general population. Four studies looked back on the effect of quarantine on 178,122 people involved in SARS and MERS outbreaks. The remaining 15 studies modelled SARS and MERS outbreaks.
The modelling studies all found that simulated quarantine measures reduce the number of people with COVID-19 and the number of deaths. With quarantine, estimates showed a minimum reduction in the number of people with COVID-19 of 44%, and a maximum reduction of 96%. Similarly, with quarantine, estimates of the number of deaths showed a minimum reduction of 31%, and a maximum reduction of 76%. Combining quarantine with other measures, such as closing schools or physical distancing, may be more effective at reducing the spread of COVID-19 than quarantine alone. The SARS and MERS studies agreed with the studies on COVID-19.
Two SARS modelling studies assessed costs. They found that the costs may be lower when quarantine measures start earlier.
Reliability of the evidence
We are uncertain about the evidence we found for several reasons. The observational studies on COVID-19 did not include a comparison group without quarantine. The COVID-19 studies based their models on limited data and made different assumptions about the virus (e.g. how quickly it would spread). The other studies investigated SARS and MERS so they only provide indirect evidence.
Conclusion
Despite limited evidence, all the studies found quarantine to be important in reducing the number of people infected and the number of deaths. Results suggest that quarantine was most effective, and cost less, when it started earlier. Combining quarantine with other prevention and control measures may have a greater effect than quarantine alone.
This review includes evidence published up to 23 June 2020.
The current evidence is limited because most studies on COVID-19 are mathematical modelling studies that make different assumptions on important model parameters. Findings consistently indicate that quarantine is important in reducing incidence and mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic, although there is uncertainty over the magnitude of the effect. Early implementation of quarantine and combining quarantine with other public health measures is important to ensure effectiveness. In order to maintain the best possible balance of measures, decision makers must constantly monitor the outbreak and the impact of the measures implemented.
This review was originally commissioned by the WHO and supported by Danube-University-Krems. The update was self-initiated by the review authors.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a rapidly emerging disease classified as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). To support the WHO with their recommendations on quarantine, we conducted a rapid review on the effectiveness of quarantine during severe coronavirus outbreaks.
To assess the effects of quarantine (alone or in combination with other measures) of individuals who had contact with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19, who travelled from countries with a declared outbreak, or who live in regions with high disease transmission.
An information specialist searched the Cochrane COVID-19 Study Register, and updated the search in PubMed, Ovid MEDLINE, WHO Global Index Medicus, Embase, and CINAHL on 23 June 2020.
Cohort studies, case-control studies, time series, interrupted time series, case series, and mathematical modelling studies that assessed the effect of any type of quarantine to control COVID-19. We also included studies on SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) as indirect evidence for the current coronavirus outbreak.
Two review authors independently screened abstracts and titles in duplicate. Two review authors then independently screened all potentially relevant full-text publications. One review author extracted data, assessed the risk of bias and assessed the certainty of evidence with GRADE and a second review author checked the assessment. We used three different tools to assess risk of bias, depending on the study design: ROBINS-I for non-randomised studies of interventions, a tool provided by Cochrane Childhood Cancer for non-randomised, non-controlled studies, and recommendations from the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) for modelling studies. We rated the certainty of evidence for the four primary outcomes: incidence, onward transmission, mortality, and costs.
We included 51 studies; 4 observational studies and 28 modelling studies on COVID-19, one observational and one modelling study on MERS, three observational and 11 modelling studies on SARS, and three modelling studies on SARS and other infectious diseases. Because of the diverse methods of measurement and analysis across the outcomes of interest, we could not conduct a meta-analysis and undertook a narrative synthesis. We judged risk of bias to be moderate for 2/3 non-randomized studies of interventions (NRSIs) and serious for 1/3 NRSI. We rated risk of bias moderate for 4/5 non-controlled cohort studies, and serious for 1/5. We rated modelling studies as having no concerns for 13 studies, moderate concerns for 17 studies and major concerns for 13 studies.
Quarantine for individuals who were in contact with a confirmed/suspected COVID-19 case in comparison to no quarantine
Modelling studies consistently reported a benefit of the simulated quarantine measures, for example, quarantine of people exposed to confirmed or suspected cases may have averted 44% to 96% of incident cases and 31% to 76% of deaths compared to no measures based on different scenarios (incident cases: 6 modelling studies on COVID-19, 1 on SARS; mortality: 2 modelling studies on COVID-19, 1 on SARS, low-certainty evidence). Studies also indicated that there may be a reduction in the basic reproduction number ranging from 37% to 88% due to the implementation of quarantine (5 modelling studies on COVID-19, low-certainty evidence). Very low-certainty evidence suggests that the earlier quarantine measures are implemented, the greater the cost savings may be (2 modelling studies on SARS).
Quarantine in combination with other measures to contain COVID-19 in comparison to other measures without quarantine or no measures
When the models combined quarantine with other prevention and control measures, such as school closures, travel restrictions and social distancing, the models demonstrated that there may be a larger effect on the reduction of new cases, transmissions and deaths than measures without quarantine or no interventions (incident cases: 9 modelling studies on COVID-19; onward transmission: 5 modelling studies on COVID-19; mortality: 5 modelling studies on COVID-19, low-certainty evidence). Studies on SARS and MERS were consistent with findings from the studies on COVID-19.
Quarantine for individuals travelling from a country with a declared COVID-19 outbreak compared to no quarantine
Very low-certainty evidence indicated that the effect of quarantine of travellers from a country with a declared outbreak on reducing incidence and deaths may be small for SARS, but might be larger for COVID-19 (2 observational studies on COVID-19 and 2 observational studies on SARS).