Community mitigation activities are actions that people and communities can take to slow the spread of infectious diseases. Community mitigation is especially important before a vaccine or drug becomes widely available.
Mitigation strategies include
- Personal protective measures (e.g., handwashing, cough etiquette, and face coverings) that persons can use at home or while in community settings
- Social distancing (e.g., maintaining physical distance between persons in community settings and staying at home)
- Environmental surface cleaning at home and in community settings, such as schools or workplaces.
Individuals, communities, schools, business and health care organizations all have a role to play in community mitigation, and policies, like limits on large gatherings, restrictions on businesses, and school closures, are often needed in order to fully implement community mitigation strategies
Each community is unique and because some of these measures can be very disruptive to daily life, appropriate mitigation strategies will vary based on the level of community transmission, characteristics of the community and their populations, and the local capacity to implement strategies.
Consideration is needed for all aspects of a community that might be impacted, including populations most vulnerable to severe illness and those that may be more impacted socially or economically, and select appropriate actions. When selecting mitigation strategies, states and communities should be guided by the local characteristics of disease transmission, demographics, and public health and healthcare system capacity. Mitigation strategies should be able to be scaled up or down depending on the evolving local situation.
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