A review on quarantine during COVID-19 outbreak: Lessons learned from previous epidemics

Since the emergence in December 2019, the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused a global pandemic that has infected so many people all around the world. As there are no vaccination or antiviral treatment available yet, public health measuresplay a substantial role in the management of this pandemic. Governments of affected countries have imposed different quarantine policies and travel bans. As quarantine can have many controversial aspects, this review intends to clarify its role in diseasecontrol and other aspects of human everyday life with due attention to a couple of epidemics in the past (SARS, MERS, and flu) and ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.

We conducted a thorough search in PubMed, Research Gate, Google Scholar, Excerpta Media Database (EMBASE), and Web of Science databases and collected all relevant articles to Quarantine in the past epidemics (SARS, MERS, and flu) as well as ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

A total of 176articles were extracted in our primary search process. Primarily, 53 articles have been excluded because of duplication. The other 44 articles have been excluded due to different reasons (Lack of usefulinformationand eligibility of data). Finally, 79articles were selected for more evaluation(published untilApril 2020).

By having previous epidemics, including SARS, MERS, and flu, in mind, quarantine and isolation seem to be proper choices for this situation. But, as this epidemyis bigger than former ones, stricter public health measurements, such as serious social distancing and community-wide containment, are recommended.