English: The use of non-pharmaceutial interventions (NPIs) for mitigating a community- wide epidemic has three major goals: 1) delay the exponential growth in incident cases and shift the epidemic curve to the right in order to "buy time" for production and distribution of a well-matched pandemic strain vaccine, 2) decrease the epidemic peak, and 3) reduce the total number of incident cases, thus reducing community morbidity and mortality. Ultimately, reducing the number of persons infected is a primary goal of pandemic planning. NPIs may help reduce influenza transmission by reducing contact between sick and uninfected persons, thereby reducing the number of infected persons. Reducing the number of persons infected will, in turn, lessen the need for healthcare services and minimize the impact of a pandemic on the economy and society.

Text and Figure 1 taken from CDC publication "Interim Pre-pandemic Planning Guidance:

Community Strategy for Pandemic Influenza Mitigation in the United States—Early, Targeted, Layered Use of Nonpharmaceutical Interventions" (February 2007).