Assuming a basic reproduction number of R 0 = 2.5 and using the standard parameter set of InfluSim [15] , an epidemic in a population of 100,000 individuals reaches the peak about 40 days after introduction of the infection and is practically over three weeks thereafter if no interventions are performed (Figure 1 ). During the whole epidemic, 87% of the population become infected, 29% seek medical help, 0.7% are hospitalized and 0.2% die. Figure  1 shows how pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions can mitigate this scenario. Contact reduction by isolation of cases alone (see Appendix), protracts the peak of the epidemic by about one week. Distribution of antivirals or additional contact reduction measures delay the epidemic by approximately 10 days and are hardly sufficient to provide a substantial delay. A combination of antiviral treatment, isolation of cases and social distancing in the general population seems to be necessary to delay the epidemic in the order of weeks. This example furthermore shows that an efficient mitigation of the epidemic is not necessarily associated with a significant reduction in the number of infections. For information on the proportions of infected people and outpatients see the legends to the Figures.