Coronavirus: is the containment strategy really effective?

Containment is on everyone's lips this Monday, at a time when coronavirus contamination is accelerating across the planet. Since the first death of an Italian, Friday in Veneto (region of Venice), Italy has taken many precautionary measures including the quarantine of a dozen cities in the north of the country, affected by the epidemic. A contamination that worries a lot on this side of the Alps.

The question of mass containment in France has so far been dismissed by the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, who also said that the country was ready to face such a possibility. Update on the conditions and effectiveness of the system.

What is containment?

The definition is simple: to be confined is to be confined within narrow limits. Medical confinement was first understood as confinement to the room, otherwise known as isolation.

It was then envisaged for mass use during the Renaissance, in the 14th and 15th centuries, in particular to block the plague in Italian cities.

Containment can be managed by health organizations, but it can also be provided by military forces, as recently in China, or in Europe in 1972 in Yugoslavia, the last European example of mass containment. During a smallpox epidemic brought back by pilgrims from Mecca, around ten million people had been confined and guarded militarily. It was the vaccination that followed that finally got the better of the epidemic.

Is containment effective?

“All the examples we know remind us of this: quarantines are not completely effective, analyzes Patrick Zylberman, professor of health history at the School of Advanced Studies in Public Health. But that does not mean that they have no effect. "

"The epidemics of historic plague and cholera in the 19th century showed that against these respiratory diseases, containment was not the ultimate weapon," said this specialist in the history of health, contacted by Le Parisien.

This is the point of view defended by Eric d'Ortenzio, medical epidemiologist at Inserm. “On the barrier measures, we do not know exactly the impact on the epidemic. But that makes it possible to reduce the effects, in particular thanks to the reduction of displacements and contacts between people ”, ensures the researcher.

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“Work on the 1918 flu in the United States has shown the effectiveness of the method. These measures reduce transmission and the impact of containment measures was real on the death rate, depending on the city. ”

The cities which had set up early interventions to close places of life, churches, theaters experienced a lower epidemic peak and a lower number of cases, underlines the scientist.

How to communicate around containment without worrying?

“Containment can reassure. It is important that people are not left alone in the face of viruses. This is a message from the public authorities, ”continues Patrick Zylberman. It is a way of "inducing a change in the behavior of the population and greater caution in relation to the risks", specifies the historian.

“But we have to support these measures with good communication around what we do. We must explain to the population, why we are doing it. Because people are afraid as soon as we talk about closing places, ”says Eric d'Ortenzio. “If containment will not stop the epidemic net, it will limit its magnitude. And we will be able to find treatments during this time, it is useful for research. These measures will have a real effect in each of the countries that apply them, ”concludes the epidemiologist.

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