Piecewise-constant optimal control strategies for controlling the outbreak of COVID-19 in the Irish population
Lennon Ó Náraigh, Áine Byrne
Abstract
We introduce a deterministic SEIR model and fit it to epidemiological data for the COVID-19 outbreak in Ireland. We couple the model to economic considerations - we formulate an optimal control problem in which the cost to the economy of the various non-pharmaceutical interventions is minimized, subject to hospital admissions never exceeding a threshold value corresponding to health-service capacity. Within the framework of the model, the optimal strategy of disease control is revealed to be one of disease suppression, rather than disease mitigation.
Topics & Concepts
PiecewiseIrishOptimal controlOutbreakCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)Constant (computer programming)Control (management)Epidemic modelPopulationComputer scienceMathematical optimizationEconometricsDiseaseOperations researchMathematicsMedicineEnvironmental healthVirologyInfectious disease (medical specialty)Artificial intelligencePhilosophyProgramming languageLinguisticsPathologyMathematical analysisCOVID-19 epidemiological studiesCOVID-19 Clinical Research StudiesSARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 Research