Incidence of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) infection among people under home quarantine in Shenzhen, China

Abstract Background Since the outbreak of 2019-nCoV in December, Chinese government has implemented various measures including travel bans, centralized treatments, and home quarantines to slowing the transmission across the country. In this study, we aimed to estimate the incidence of 2019-nCoV infection among people under home quarantine in Shenzhen, China. Methods: We used a stratified multistage random sampling method to recruit participants and collected demographic information and laboratory results of people under home quarantine. We conducted descriptive analysis to estimate the basic characteristics and to calculate the incidence in out study population. Results: A total of 2004 people under home quarantine participated in this study, of which 1637 participants finished the questionnaire with a response rate of 81.7%. Mean age of the participants was 33.7 years, ranging from 0.3 to 80.2 years. Of people who provided clear travel history, 129 people have traveled to Wuhan city and 1,046 people have traveled to other cities in Hubei province within 14 days before the home quarantine. Few (less than 1%) participants reported contact history with confirmed or suspected cases during their trip and most of these arrived at Shenzhen between Jan 24, 2020 to Jan 27, 2020. The incidence of COVID-19 in the sample was 1.5‰ (95% CI: 0.31‰–4.37‰). Conclusion: Home quarantine has been effective in preventing the early transmission of COVID-19, but that more needs to be done to improve early detection of COVID-19 infection.