It makes sense total sense to compare, it's another respiratory virus, from a family of viruses already known. We must not reinvent the wheel when we know the dynamics of these viruses and the countermeasures to take.

The key metric that determines whether COVID-19 can establish and generate a sustained outbreak is it's ability to reproduce, "R", which represents the average number of individuals to which each transmitter transmits the virus.

- If "R" is greater than 1, the transmission may become sustained; - If “R” is less than 1, then the transmission will simply dissipate.

In the current outbreak, it represents an R of 2.2 [1], meaning that on average each patient has been spreading infection to 2.2 other people.

Only a little bit more than half of the infections should be avoided so that R falls below 1. Preventive isolation and the measures established by the protocols should be sufficient.

Besides, there is little evidence to suggest the presymptomatic transmission of COVID-19

[1]: https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2001316