Related papers: Optimal epidemic suppression under an ICU constrai…
This article considers the minimization of the total number of infected individuals over the course of an epidemic in which the rate of infectious contacts can be reduced by time-dependent nonpharmaceutical interventions. The societal and…
When effective medical treatment and vaccination are not available, non-pharmaceutical interventions such as social distancing, home quarantine and far-reaching shutdown of public life are the only available strategies to prevent the spread…
We study the problem of a policymaker who aims at taming the spread of an epidemic while minimizing its associated social costs. The main feature of our model lies in the fact that the disease's transmission rate is a diffusive stochastic…
Epidemics of infectious diseases posing a serious risk to human health have occurred throughout history. During recent epidemics there has been much debate about policy, including how and when to impose restrictions on behaviour.…
We analyze an approach to managing the COVID-19 pandemic without shutting down the economy while staying within the capacity of the healthcare system. We base our analysis on a detailed heterogeneous epidemiological model, which takes into…
During a pandemic, there are conflicting demands arising from public health and economic cost. Lockdowns are a common way of containing infections, but they adversely affect the economy. We study the question of how to minimise the economic…
Several non-pharmaceutical interventions have been proposed to control the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. On the large scale, these empirical solutions, often associated with extended and complete lockdowns, attempt to minimize the costs…
We formulate an optimal control problem to determine the lockdown policy to curb an epidemic where other control measures are not available yet. We present a unified framework to model the epidemic and economy that allows us to study the…
This paper considers a simple model where a social planner can influence the spread-intensity of an infection wave, and, consequently, also the economic activity and population health, through a single parameter. Population health is…
The recent COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need of non-pharmaceutical interventions in the first stages of a pandemic. Among these, lockdown policies proved unavoidable yet extremely costly from an economic perspective. To better…
We consider here an extended SIR model, including several features of the recent COVID-19 outbreak: in particular the infected and recovered individuals can either be detected (+) or undetected (-) and we also integrate an intensive care…
This paper combines a canonical epidemiology model of disease dynamics with government policy of lockdown and testing, and agents' decision to social distance in order to avoid getting infected. The model is calibrated with data on deaths…
As the COVID19 spreads across the world, prevention measures are becoming the essential weapons to combat the pandemic in the period of crisis. The lockdown measure is the most controversial one as it imposes an overwhelming impact on our…
In the absence of drugs and vaccines, policymakers use non-pharmaceutical interventions such as social distancing to decrease rates of disease-causing contact, with the aim of reducing or delaying the epidemic peak. These measures carry…
Restrictions on social and economic activities, as well as vaccinations, have been a key intervention in containing the COVID-19 epidemic. Our work focuses on better understanding the options available to policymakers under the conditions…
This paper studies an optimal control problem for a class of SIR epidemic models, in scenarios in which the infected population is constrained to be lower than a critical threshold imposed by the ICU (intensive care unit) capacity. The…
The spread of COVID-19 has been thwarted in most countries through non-pharmaceutical interventions. In particular, the most effective measures in this direction have been the stay-at-home and closure strategies of businesses and schools.…
We analyze the optimal control of disease prevention and treatment in a basic SIS model. We develop a simple macroeconomic setup in which the social planner determines how to optimally intervene, through income taxation, in order to…
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 analyse 'stop-and-go' containment policies that produce infection cycles as periods of tight lockdowns are followed by periods of falling infection rates. The subsequent relaxation of containment measures allows cases to increase again…