In the context of a high-impact respiratory pathogen, quarantine may be the least likely NPI to be effective in controlling the spread due to high transmissibility. To implement effective quarantine measures, it would need to be possible to accurately evaluate an individual’s exposure, which would be difficult to do for a respiratory pathogen because of the ease of widespread transmission from infected individuals. Quarantine measures will be least effective for pathogens that are highly transmissible, have short incubation periods, and spread through true airborne mechanisms, as opposed to droplets. As with travel restrictions, quarantine appears to delay the introduction of highly transmissible diseases but not prevent their spread entirely. Quarantine measures also appear more effective with pathogens that had a longer incubation period, such as measles, compared to those with shorter incubation periods, such as influenza.Experiences with quarantine during the West Africa Ebola epidemic highlight the added difficulty of implementing such measures on a large scale, which would only be more difficult in the case of a highly transmissible respiratory disease.
In the public setting, there is very little available information that studies the effectiveness of masks outside of health facilities.
