Optimal Epidemic Suppression under an ICU Constraint

Laurent Miclo, Daniel Spiro and Jörgen Weibull

No 8290, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

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 while suppression is costly (e.g., limiting economic interaction). 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 discountinuous. 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”.

Keywords: Covid-19; corona; epidemic; pandemic; suppression; control optimality; health; infection. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C61 D60 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (28)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Optimal epidemic suppression under an ICU constraint (2020)
Working Paper: Optimal epidemic suppression under an ICU constraint (2020)
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