Taming the spread of an epidemic by lockdown policies

DOI10.1016/J.JMATECO.2020.102453zbMATH Open1459.91090arXiv2007.10870OpenAlexW3112728604WikidataQ104479872 ScholiaQ104479872MaRDI QIDQ2656366FDOQ2656366

Authors: Salvatore Federico, Giorgio Ferrari 

Publication date: 11 March 2021

Published in: Journal of Mathematical Economics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: 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 process whose trend can be adjusted via costly confinement policies. We provide a complete theoretical analysis, as well as numerical experiments illustrating the structure of the optimal lockdown policy. In all our experiments the latter is characterized by three distinct periods: the epidemic is first let freely evolve, then vigorously tamed, and finally a less stringent containment should be adopted. Moreover, the optimal containment policy is such that the product "reproduction number x percentage of susceptible" is kept after a certain date strictly below the critical level of one, although the reproduction number is let oscillate above one in the last more relaxed phase of lockdown. Finally, an increase in the fluctuations of the transmission rate is shown to give rise to an earlier beginning of the optimal lockdown policy, which is also diluted over a longer period of time.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.10870

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zbMATH Keywords

epidemicoptimal stochastic controlSIR modelviscosity solutionlockdown

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Epidemiology (92D30) Viscosity solutions to Hamilton-Jacobi equations in optimal control and differential games (49L25) Economic dynamics (91B55) Optimal stochastic control (93E20)

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Cited In (28)

• Optimal timing of non-pharmaceutical interventions during an epidemic
• Dynamical analysis of healthcare policy effects in an integrated economic-epidemiological model
• An explicit formula for minimizing the infected peak in an SIR epidemic model when using a fixed number of complete lockdowns
• The optimal lockdown intensity for COVID-19
• Optimal lockdown in altruistic economies
• Economic epidemiological modelling: a progress report
• Optimal switching between locking down and opening the economy because of an infection
• Incentives, lockdown, and testing: from Thucydides' analysis to the COVID-19 pandemic
• The hammer and the jab: are COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccinations complements or substitutes?
• Flattening the Curve
• Learning versus habit formation: optimal timing of lockdown for disease containment
• The economics of epidemics and contagious diseases: an introduction
• Stochastic epidemic spreading: not all super-spreading processes are born equal, neither all lockdown strategies
• Optimal epidemic control in equilibrium with imperfect testing and enforcement
• The economic impact of lockdowns: a theoretical assessment
• Pandemic mitigation: bringing it home
• On the economic growth equilibria during the Covid-19 pandemic
• Prevention and mitigation of epidemics: biodiversity conservation and confinement policies
• Isolation in the control of epidemic
• Road to recovery: managing an epidemic
• Optimal epidemic suppression under an ICU constraint: an analytical solution
• COVID-19 and optimal lockdown strategies: the effect of new and more virulent strains
• Local lockdowns outperform global lockdown on the far side of the COVID-19 epidemic curve
• Analysis of optimal lockdown in integral economic-epidemic model
• Epidemic outbreaks and the optimal lockdown area: a spatial normative approach
• Optimal lockdown and vaccination policies to contain the spread of a mutating infectious disease
• Stochastic disease spreading and containment policies under state-dependent probabilities
• On the benefits of flattening the curve: a perspective

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