Efficacy of mass quarantine as leverage of health system governance during COVID-19 outbreak: A mini policy review

Abstract

On January 23, 2020, the Chinese government announced the city lockdown of Wuhan. Since then, there have been controversial debates among experts about the efficacy of mass quarantine, the oldest and probably one of the most effective methods for controlling infectious disease outbreaks. The impact of health policymaking section of health system governance becomes visible to all stakeholders and the public in such emergency contexts. The success and failure of such policies should be evaluated in order to find the proper course of action for the local and international communities. In this review, we aim to investigate the efficacy of mass quarantine in China during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We found good quality evidence for the effectiveness of mass quarantine during the current stage of COVID-19 pandemic, and these strategies seem to have been highly effective in controlling the spread of the disease.