Probing into the effectiveness of self-isolation policies in epidemic control

Abstract

In this work, we inspect the reliability of controlling and quelling an epidemic disease mimicked by a Susceptible-Infected-Susceptible (SIS) model defined on a complex network by means of current and implementable quarantine and isolation policies. Specifically, we consider that each individual in the network is originally linked to two types of individuals: members of the same household and acquaintances. The topology of this network evolves taking into account a probability $q$ that aims at representing the quarantine or isolation process in which the connection with acquaintances is disrupted according to standard policies of control of epidemics. Within current policies of self-isolation and standard infection rates, our results show that the propagation is either only controllable for hypothetical rates of compliance or uncontrollable at all.