Related papers: Optimal policies for mitigating pandemic costs

To curb the spread of COVID-19, many governments around the world have implemented tiered lockdowns with varying degrees of stringency. Lockdown levels are typically increased when the disease spreads and reduced when the disease abates. A…

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,…

Social distancing is the primary policy prescription for combating the COVID-19 pandemic, and has been widely adopted in Europe and North America. We estimate the value of disease avoidance using an epidemiological model that projects the…

We propose and study a compartmental model for epidemiology with human behavioral effects. Specifically, our model incorporates governmental prevention measures aimed at lowering the disease infection rate, but we split the population into…

Combinations of intense non-pharmaceutical interventions ('lockdowns') were introduced in countries worldwide to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Many governments have begun to implement lockdown exit strategies that allow restrictions to be…

Many of the control policies that were put into place during the Covid-19 pandemic had a common goal: to flatten the curve of the number of infected people so that its peak remains under a critical threshold. This letter considers the…

Currently there are many attempts around the world to use computers, smartphones, tablets and other electronic devices in order to stop the spread of COVID-19. Most of these attempts focus on collecting information about infected people, in…

After the first lockdown in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, many countries faced difficulties in balancing infection control with economics. Due to limited prior knowledge, economists began researching this issue using cost-benefit…

COVID-19 is a global epidemic. Till now, there is no remedy for this epidemic. However, isolation and social distancing are seemed to be effective preventive measures to control this pandemic. Therefore, in this paper, an optimization…

We propose a versatile model with a flexible choice of control for an early-pandemic outbreak prevention when vaccine/drug is not yet available. At that stage, control is often limited to non-medical interventions like social distancing and…

Motivated by the issue of COVID-19 mitigation, in this work we tackle the general problem of optimally controlling an epidemic outbreak of a communicable disease structured by time since exposure, by the aid of two types of control…

The COVID-19 pandemic and the mitigation policies implemented in response to it have resulted in economic losses worldwide. Attempts to understand the relationship between economics and epidemiology has lead to a new generation of…

By the end of 2021, COVID-19 had spread to over 230 countries, with over 5.4 million deaths. To contain its spread, many countries implemented non-pharmaceutical interventions, notably contact tracing and self-quarantine policies. However,…

The COVID-19 pandemic has completely disrupted the operation of our societies. Its elusive transmission process, characterized by an unusually long incubation period, as well as a high contagion capacity, has forced many countries to take…

We apply optimal control theory to a tuberculosis model given by a system of ordinary differential equations. Optimal control strategies are proposed to minimize the cost of interventions, considering reinfection and post-exposure…

Optimal control theory in epidemiology has been used to establish the most effective intervention strategies for managing and mitigating the spread of infectious diseases while considering constraints and costs. Using Pontryagin's Maximum…

Recent Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated the need of efficient epidemic outbreak management. We study the optimal control problem of minimizing the fraction of infected population by applying vaccination and treatment control strategies,…

This study develops an economic model for a social planner who prioritizes health over short-term wealth accumulation during a pandemic. Agents are connected through a weighted undirected network of contacts, and the planner's objective is…

Social distancing strategies have been adopted by governments to manage the COVID-19 pandemic, since the first outbreak began. However, further epidemic waves keep out the return of economic and social activities to their standard levels of…

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…