Fig. 1: Model-based demonstration of effect of delays in implementing public health interventions on number of individuals needing treatment during an epidemic.

Time course of the number of individuals requiring intensive care therapy if measures are taken at different time points to reduce the effective reproduction number below 1 (reproduction number (R) at the start set to R = 2, reduced to R = 0.9 after 7, 14, 21, 28 days). Assumptions of the Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered (SEIR) model: pre-infection time: 3 days, infectious time: 7 days, proportion of individuals requiring intensive care unit out of all infectious patients: 2%, length of stay in intensive care unit: 15 days, population size: 80.000.000, number of susceptible individuals at the start: 79.950.000, number of exposed individuals at start: 40.000, number of infectious individuals at the start: 10.000, number of immune individuals at the start: 0, number of individuals requiring intensive care at the start: 0.