Related papers: Optimal policies for mitigating pandemic costs
A mathematical model for the COVID-19 pandemic spread, which integrates age-structured Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Recovered-Deceased dynamics with real mobile phone data accounting for the population mobility, is presented. The dynamical…
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…
We devise a theoretical model for the optimal dynamical control of an infectious disease whose diffusion is described by the SVIR compartmental model. The control is realized through implementing social rules to reduce the disease's spread,…
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced policy makers to decree urgent confinements to stop a rapid and massive contagion. However, after that stage, societies are being forced to find an equilibrium between the need to reduce contagion rates and…
Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) are effective measures to contain a pandemic. Yet, such control measures commonly have a negative effect on the economy. Here, we propose a macro-level approach to support resolving this…
How much and when should we limit economic and social activity to ensure that the health-care system is not overwhelmed during an epidemic? We study a setting where ICU resources are constrained while suppression is costly (e.g., limiting…
The COVID-19 pandemic constitutes one of the largest threats in recent decades to the health and economic welfare of populations globally. In this paper, we analyze different types of policy measures designed to fight the spread of the…
The COVID-19 pandemic left its unique mark on the 21st century as one of the most significant disasters in history, triggering governments all over the world to respond with a wide range of interventions. However, these restrictions come…
While many efforts are currently devoted to vaccines development and administration, social distancing measures, including severe restrictions such as lockdowns, remain fundamental tools to contain the spread of COVID-19. A crucial point…
The rapid spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) confronts policy makers with the problem of measuring the effectiveness of containment strategies, balancing public health considerations with the economic costs of social distancing measures.…
After the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw an increase in demand for epidemiological mathematical models. The goal of this work is to study the optimal control for an age-structured model as a strategy of quarantine of infected people, which is…
In an emerging pandemic, policymakers need to make important decisions with limited information, for example choosing between a mitigation, suppression or elimination strategy. These strategies may require trade-offs to be made between the…
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…
The COVID-19 pandemic began over two years ago, yet schools, businesses, and other organizations are still struggling to keep the risk of disease outbreak low while returning to (near) normal functionality. Observations from these past…
While several non-pharmacological measures have been implemented for a few months in an effort to slow the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in the United States, the disease remains a danger in a number of counties as restrictions…
The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and resulting COVID-19 disease have had an unprecedented spread and continue to cause an increasing number of fatalities worldwide. While vaccines are still under development, social distancing, extensive…
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…
We analyze an optimal control version of a simple SIR epidemiology model that includes a partially specified vaccination policy and takes into account fatigue from protracted application of social distancing measures. The model assumes…
Mitigation measures are essential for controlling the spread of infectious diseases during pandemics and epidemics, but they impose considerable societal, individual, and economic costs. We developed a general optimization framework to…
We consider the problem of controlling an SIR-model epidemic by temporarily reducing the rate of contact within a population. The control takes the form of a multiplicative reduction in the contact rate of infectious individuals. The…