Related papers: Infection arbitrage
The recent COVID-19 pandemic has shown that when the reproduction number is high and there are no proper measurements in place, the number of infected people can increase dramatically in a short time, producing a phenomenon that many…
We develop a minimalist compartmental model to study the impact of mobility restrictions in Italy during the Covid-19 outbreak. We show that an early lockdown shifts the epidemic in time, while that beyond a critical value of the lockdown…
Given maximal social distancing duration and intensity, how can one minimize the epidemic final size, or equivalently the total number of individuals infected during the outbreak? A complete answer to this question is provided and…
We model an epidemic where the per-person infectiousness in a network of geographic localities changes with the total number of active cases. This would happen as people adopt more stringent non-pharmaceutical precautions when the…
This work introduces a novel epidemiological model that simultaneously considers multiple viral strains, reinfections due to waning immunity response over time and an optimal control formulation. This enables us to derive optimal mitigation…
Testing is a crucial control mechanism in the beginning phase of an epidemic when the vaccines are not yet available. It enables the public health authority to detect and isolate the infected cases from the population, thereby limiting the…
In epidemic or pandemic situations, resources for testing the infection status of individuals may be scarce. Although group testing can help to significantly increase testing capabilities, the (repeated) testing of entire populations can…
The cataclysmic contagion based calamity -- Covid-19 has shown us a clear need for a comprehensive community based strategy that overcomes the sheer complexity of controlling it and the caveats of current methods. In this regard, as seen in…
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic peaked very early in comparison to the thresholds predicted by an analysis of prior lockdown regimes. The most convenient explanation is that some, external factor changed the value of the basic reproduction number,…
An agent acquires information dynamically until her belief about a binary state reaches an upper or lower threshold. She can choose any signal process subject to a constraint on the rate of entropy reduction. Strategies are ordered by "time…
The impact of mitigation or control measures on an epidemics can be estimated by fitting the parameters of a compartmental model to empirical data, and running the model forward with modified parameters that account for a specific measure.…
We introduce a multi-population mean field game framework to examine how economic status and authority perception shape vaccination and social distancing decisions under different epidemic control policies. We carried out a survey to inform…
I propose a smartphone app that will allow people to participate in the management of their own safety during an epidemic or pandemic such as COVID-19 by enabling them to view, in advance, the risks they would take if they visit some given…
Recent years have seen increasing efforts to forecast infectious disease burdens, with a primary goal being to help public health workers make informed policy decisions. However, there has only been limited discussion of how predominant…
In this work, we simulate the COVID-19 pandemic dynamics in a population modeled as a network of groups wherein infection can propagate both via intra-group and via inter-group interactions. Our results emphasize the importance of…
Age structure is incorporated in many types of epidemic model. Often it is convenient to assume that such models converge to early asymptotic behaviour quickly, before the susceptible population has been appreciably depleted. We make use of…
As a consequence of missing data on tests for infection and imperfect accuracy of tests, reported rates of population infection by the SARS CoV-2 virus are lower than actual rates of infection. Hence, reported rates of severe illness…
The suggestion by K.L. Cooke (1967) that infected individuals become infective if they are exposed often enough for a natural disease resistance to be overcome is built into a Kermack-McKendrick type epidemic model with infectivity age.…
In the context of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, several reports and studies have attempted to model and predict the spread of the disease. There is also intense debate about policies for limiting the damage, both to health and to the…
During epidemic outbreaks, information dissemination enhances individual protection, while social institutions influence the transmission through measures like government interventions, media campaigns, and hospital resource allocation.…