The concentric ring construct method was an effective approach towards containing the spread of the infections. The method involved identifying and vaccinating contacts of the confirmed cases. The strategy was instrumental in preventing further spread because individuals who were suspected were getting vaccinated, which reduced the possibility of further infections (Deen & von Seidlein, 2018). However, it was later notable that the containment strategy was not effective in curbing the rate of infections. That was due to the mechanism spread of influenza. World Health Organization realized that influenza has a latency period before an individual starts showing acute symptoms. During the period, there is the possibility that an infected person can facilitate infection of other people through the respiratory particulate matter. Consequently, there was the challenge of tracing infected individuals.
Quarantine has been used to control COVID-19. Up to some extent, it is one of the strategies that could have been used to contain the influenza outbreak in 2009 (Lunz et al., 2020). The existence of the latency period implied that an infected person could infect other people before starting to show serious symptoms. As a result, tracing the contacts could have been a challenge just like the concentric ring construct methods. The use of quarantine would have been a method to supplement other strategies but has similar limitations.
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The lessons learn from the 2009 H1N1 influenza and COVID-19 pandemics call for the need to adopt proper health policies to deal with highly infectious infections. First, there is a need to adopt ‘social distancing’ as a compulsory policy. The public must realize that such infections exist, they have the obligation to practice preventive measures that would help to deal with them. Secondly, the public should adapt to the routine of wearing protective gear such as masks. Next, vaccination for the infections should be mandatory to help in preventing their spread.
References
Deen, J., & von Seidlein, L. (2018). The case for ring vaccinations with special consideration of oral cholera vaccines. Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics , 14 (8), 2069-2074.
Lunz, D., Batt, G., & Ruess, J. (2020). To quarantine, or not to quarantine: A theoretical framework for disease control via contact tracing. Epidemics , 100428.
