Optimal COVID-19 epidemic control until vaccine deployment

Ramses Djidjou-Demasse; Yannis Michalakis; Marc Choisy; Micea T. Sofonea; Samuel Alizon

In this scenario, we start with a strict public health measure during 5 weeks, followed by a constant control intensity until the end of the period of interest (Figure 2a) . The idea is to capture the reaction of several countries that have first implemented strict containment strategies that cannot be sustained for a long period of time. In order to facilitate comparisons between scenarios, the fixed constant control corresponds to the average of optimal control c * . The initial strict control is assumed and it should be even easier to decrease deaths (since we control more). With this strategy, the epidemic peak is strongly delayed compared to the scenario without any control (Figure 2b) . However, the cumulative number of deaths at the end of the period of interest is very similar to the scenario without control, both for the direct deaths caused by COVID-19 infections and for the indirect deaths caused by the saturation of the healthcare system (Figure 2c,d) .