Joint estimation of case fatality rate of COVID-19 and power of quarantine strategy performed in Wuhan, China

From the first case of COVID-19 confirmed in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province, China, in early December 2019, it has been found in more than 160 countries and caused over 11,000 deaths as of March 20, 2020. Wuhan, as the city where the epidemic first broke out, has made great sacrifices to block the possible transmission. In this research, we estimate the case fatality rate (CFR) of COVID-19 and quantify the effect of quarantine strategy utilized in Wuhan by developing an extended Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) model. The outcomes suggest that the CFR is 4.4% (95% CI [3.6%, 5.2%]) and the effect of the quarantine strategy is 99.3% (95% CI [99.2%, 99.5%]), which implies that such a method can significantly reduce the number of infections.

Automated summary

Since the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Wuhan, it has spread rapidly to over 160 countries, with a case fatality rate of around 4.4%. The quarantine strategy implemented in Wuhan has shown to significantly reduce the number of infections, with an estimated effectiveness of 99.3%.