Related papers: How Best Can Finite-Time Social Distancing Reduce …
Understanding the dynamics of an epidemic spread is crucial for effective control measures. During the COVID-19 pandemic, quarantines were implemented to minimize infections while mitigating social and economic impacts, raising the question…
A model of reactive social distancing in epidemics is proposed, in which the infection rate changes with the number infected. The final-size equation for the total number that the epidemic will infect can be derived analytically, as can the…
Until a vaccine or therapy is found against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, reaching herd immunity appears to be the only mid-term option. However, if the number of infected individuals decreases and eventually fades only beyond this threshold,…
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…
We propose a simple SIR model in order to investigate the impact of various confinement strategies on a most virulent epidemic. Our approach is motivated by the current COVID-19 pandemic. The main hypothesis is the existence of two…
Mathematical models are instrumental to forecast the spread of pathogens and to evaluate the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical measures. A plethora of optimal strategies has been recently developed to minimize either the infected peak…
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 consider a susceptible, infected, removed (SIR) system where the transmission rate may be temporarily reduced for a fixed amount of time. We show that in order to minimize the total number of fatalities, the transmission rate should be…
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…
This paper analyses the optimal control of infectious disease propagation using a classic susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) model characterised by permanent immunity and the absence of available vaccines. The control is performed over a…
We consider a behavioral-feedback SIR epidemic model, in which the infection rate depends in feedback on the fractions of susceptible and infected agents, respectively. The considered model allows one to account for endogenous adaptation…
We study first order necessary conditions for an optimal control problem of a Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) model with limitations on the duration of the quarantine. The control is done by means of the reproduction number, i.e., the…
One of the main challenges of the measures against the COVID-19 epidemic is to reduce the amplitude of the epidemic peak without increasing without control its timescale. We investigate this problem using the SIR model for the epidemic…
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…
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…
How does social distancing affect the reach of an epidemic in social networks? We present Monte Carlo simulation results of a capacity constrained Susceptible-Infected-Removed (SIR) model. The key modelling feature is that individuals are…
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…
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…
The most important features to assess the severity of an epidemic are its size and its timescale. We discuss these features in a systematic way in the context of SIR and SIR-type models. We investigate in detail how the size and timescale…
Without vaccines and treatments, societies must rely on non-pharmaceutical intervention strategies to control the spread of emerging diseases such as COVID-19. Though complete lockdown is epidemiologically effective, because it eliminates…