Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a rapidly emerging disease that infected over 87,000 people within two months. To support the World Health Organization (WHO) with their recommendations on quarantine, we conducted a rapid review on the effectiveness of quarantine during severe coronavirus outbreaks.

Methods: An information specialist searched PubMed, Ovid MEDLINE, WHO Global Index Medicus, Embase, and CINAHL on February 12, 2020 and WHO provided records from daily searches in Chinese databases. Two investigators independently screened 30% of records; a single reviewer screened the remaining 70%. Two reviewers screened all potentially relevant full-text publications independently. Data extraction, and quality assessment of evidence was done by one investigator and checked by a second.

Findings: We included 21 out of 1231 identified studies. Two modeling studies on COVID-19 state that early and strict prevention and control measures that reduce the contact rate and infection efficiency are key to contain the outbreak. Four cohort studies and 15 modeling studies on SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) confirm the effectiveness of quarantine of individuals who have had close contact with confirmed cases. The number of infections and deaths averted with quarantine of travelers from a country with a declared outbreak, however, was substantially lower. Certainty of evidence was low to very low.

Interpretation: Studies consistently conclude that quarantine is an essential method to control coronavirus diseases. For both, effectiveness and resource use, early implementation of quarantine seems to be crucial.

Funding: Comissioned by WHO and supported by Danube-University-Krems