The basic strategies in the control of an outbreak are containment and mitigation. Containment may be undertaken in the early stages of the outbreak, including contact tracing and isolating infected individuals to stop the disease from spreading to the rest of the population, other public health interventions on infection control, and therapeutic countermeasures such as vaccinations which may be effective if available. When it becomes apparent that it is no longer possible to contain the spread of the disease, management will then move on to the mitigation stage, in which measures are taken to slow the spread of the disease and mitigate its effects on society and the healthcare system. In reality, containment and mitigation measures may be undertaken simultaneously. A key part of managing an infectious disease outbreak is trying to decrease the epidemic peak, known as "flattening the curve". This helps decrease the risk of health services being overwhelmed and provides more time for a vaccine and treatment to be developed. A broad group of the so-called non-pharmaceutical interventions may be taken to manage the outbreak. In a flu<unk> , these actions may include personal preventive measures such as hand hygiene, wearing face-masks, and self-quarantine; community measures aimed at social distancing such as closing schools and canceling mass gatherings; community engagement to encourage acceptance and participation in such interventions; and environmental measures such as cleaning of surfaces. Another strategy, suppression, requires more extreme long-term non-pharmaceutical interventions to reverse the<unk>  by reducing the basic reproduction number to less than1. The suppression strategy, which includes stringent population-wide social distancing, home isolation of cases, and household quarantine, was undertaken by China during the COVID-19<unk>  where entire cities were placed under lockdown; such a strategy may carry with it considerable social and economic costs.
Pandemic
Epizootic
Epidemic
Breakthrough infection
Acute 
Preclinical development
Postdrome
Flu season