Related papers: Optimal epidemic suppression under an ICU constrai…

Understanding how to effectively control an epidemic spreading on a network is a problem of paramount importance for the scientific community. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for policies that mitigate the spread,…

We analyze an optimal control version of a simple SIRS epidemiology model. The policy maker can adopt policies to diminish the contact rate between infected and susceptible individuals, at a specific economic cost. The arrival of a vaccine…

We give the explicit solution of the optimal control problem which consists in minimizing the epidemic peak in the SIR model when the control is an attenuation factor of the infectious rate, subject to a L 1 budget constraint. The optimal…

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…

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…

Optimizing the impact on the economy of control strategies aiming at containing the spread of COVID-19 is a critical challenge. We use daily new case counts of COVID-19 patients reported by local health administrations from different…

As a common strategy of contagious disease containment, lockdowns will inevitably weaken the economy. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic underscores the trade-off arising from public health and economic cost. An optimal lockdown policy to…

The aim of this paper is to provide a rigorous mathematical analysis of an optimal control problem of a SIR epidemic on an infinite horizon. A state constraint related to intensive care units (ICU) capacity is imposed and the objective…

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a policy making crisis where efforts to slow down or end the pandemic conflict with economic priorities. This paper provides mathematical analysis of optimal disease control policies with idealized…

Increasing the infection risk early in an epidemic is individually and socially optimal under some parameter values. The reason is that the early patients recover or die before the peak of the epidemic, which flattens the peak. This…

Lockdown procedures have been proven successful in mitigating the spread of the viruses in this COVID-19 pandemic, but they also have devastating impact on the economy. We use a modified Susceptible-Infectious-Recovered-Deceased model with…

High impact epidemics constitute one of the largest threats humanity is facing in the 21st century. Testing, contact tracing and quarantining are critical in slowing down epidemic dynamics, but may prove insufficient for highly contagious…

Analysis of policies for managing epidemics require simultaneously an economic and epidemiological perspective. We adopt a cost-of-policy framework to model both the virus spread and the cost of handling the pandemic. Because it is harder…

The design of an efficient curing policy, able to stem an epidemic process at an affordable cost, has to account for the structure of the population contact network supporting the contagious process. Thus, we tackle the problem of…

Epidemic spreading can be suppressed by the introduction of containment measures such as social distancing and lock downs. Yet, when such measures are relaxed, new epidemic waves and infection cycles may occur. Here we explore this issue in…

Strong social distancing restrictions have been crucial to controlling the COVID-19 outbreak thus far, and the next question is when and how to relax these restrictions. A sequential timing of relaxing restrictions across groups is explored…

As we reach the apex of the COVID-19 pandemic, the most pressing question facing us is: can we even partially reopen the economy without risking a second wave? We first need to understand if shutting down the economy helped. And if it did,…

We study equilibrium distancing during epidemics. Distancing reduces the individual's probability of getting infected but comes at a cost. It creates a single-peaked epidemic, flattens the curve and decreases the size of the epidemic. We…

``When in a difficult situation, it is sometimes better to give up and start all over again''. While this empirical truth has been regularly observed in a wide range of circumstances, quantifying the effectiveness of such a heuristic…

We analyze equilibrium behavior and optimal policy within a Susceptible-Infected-Recovered epidemic model augmented with potentially undiagnosed agents who infer their health status and a social planner with imperfect enforcement of social…