Miclo, Laurent, Weibull, Jörgen W. and Spiro, Daniel (2020) Optimal epidemic suppression under an ICU constraint. TSE Working Paper, n. 20-1111, Toulouse

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Abstract

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 and suppression is costly. Providing a fully analytical solution we show that the common wisdom of “flattening the curve”, where suppression measures are continuously taken to hold down the spread throughout the epidemic, is suboptimal.
Instead, the optimal suppression is discontinuous. The epidemic should be left unregulated in a first phase and when the ICU constraint is approaching society should quickly lock down (a discontinuity). After the lockdown regulation should gradually be lifted, holding the rate of infected constant, thus respecting the ICU resources while not unnecessarily limiting economic activity. In a final phase, regulation is lifted. We call this strategy “filling the box”.

Item Type: Monograph (Working Paper)
Language: English
Date: June 2020
Place of Publication: Toulouse
Uncontrolled Keywords: Epidemic, Optimal control, Health, Suppression, Infection, Corona
Subjects: B- ECONOMIE ET FINANCE
Divisions: Institut de mathématiques de Toulouse, TSE-R (Toulouse)
Institution: Université Toulouse Capitole
Site: UT1
Date Deposited: 09 Jun 2020 07:41
Last Modified: 24 Mar 2023 12:40
OAI Identifier: oai:tse-fr.eu:124367
URI: https://publications.ut-capitole.fr/id/eprint/35046

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