Modeling Exit Strategies from COVID-19 Lockdown with a Focus on Antibody Tests

Reinhard German; Anatoli Djanatliev; Lisa Maile; Peter Bazan; Holger Hackstein

• Without enacting interventions such as the lockdown in March 2020, the disease would cause significant overload of the health system with many deaths expected. This is in agreement with the findings of other COVID-19 models. • If the lockdown would just be released after 4 weeks in April and a return takes place to the status before lockdown, the disease can be expected to rebound just with a slight delay corresponding to the time of the lockdown, meaning that a little time has been gained in order to prepare the health system better but with the same potentially large number of deaths. • If hygienic measures are put in place after lockdown, a slight mitigation can be expected but this alone would not be sufficient to defeat the disease. • This however can be achieved with repetitive short term contact reductions similar to the current lockdown;