Optimal epidemic suppression under an ICU constraint

Laurent Miclo, Jörgen Weibull and Daniel Spiro

No 20-1111, TSE Working Papers from Toulouse School of Economics (TSE)

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”.

Keywords: Epidemic; Optimal control; Health; Suppression; Infection; Corona. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mic
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

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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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