Effects of social isolation on COVID-19 trends

Social isolation is the most common and effective way to control disease transmission during pandemics with the specific implementations great impacting the results. This study used the SEIRS model to analyze the pandemic conditions in 4 countries to investigate the effectiveness of various social isolation schemes on the spread of the corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) to prepare for additional future outbreaks with emphasis on the effects of the isolation duration and degree. The results show that for short-term social isolation, longer isolation time and lower isolation degree worked better for countries with good medical facilities and small populations while shorter isolation time and higher isolation degree worked better for countries with general medical facilities and large populations. For long-term social isolation until COVID-19 is disappeared, a 50% degree of isolation provided effective results. Overall, long-term social isolation is more effective than short-term isolation. © 2021, Tsinghua University Press. All right reserved.