Is there any public health/epidemiological significance to the 21-day lockdown period announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi?
It seems that rich scientific data has fed this decision to announce a 21-day lockdown period. In fact, 21-day quarantines have been discussed elaborately in the context of Ebola and the calculations are based on the estimated incubation period of the virus in a human host. The 21-day quarantine value is derived from interpretations of outbreak data, past and present, public health experts said.
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Median incubation period
“In epidemiological terms, the logic is that we have arrived at an incubation period of 14 days. Give another week for the residual infection to die out, for the tail end, to be entirely safe, and you arrive at 21 days,” says Tamil Nadu’s Director of Public Health K. Kolandasamy. This being a new coronavirus, they have estimated that the median incubation period (the