Modeling quarantine during epidemics by mass-testing with drones

Leonid Sedov; Alexander Krasnochub; valentin polishchuk

For a theoretical application of our estimates, we restate our vision that each drone will fly its route continuously: that is, even though we are solving a "single-shot" service problem which minimizes the time needed to serve every inhabitant only once, we envision that people will be tested periodically, with the interval D between the tests (the recurring testing is needed to catch those who were infected after the previous test). We introduce the "Quarantined" compartment (Q) into the SIR model and assume that I now represents infected but not quarantined people (i.e., those spreading the disease); we dub the extended model SIQR. ( We remark that our model is different from other extensions of SIR such as SEIR [AB12, B10, BP19] introducing Exposed people or models with vaccination [KWMD+03] ) Transitions to Q happen only from I, and the rate of the transition is 1/D (this is where our estimates of D are used); transitions from Q happen only to R with the rate b (the same as from I to R --we assume that the . CC-BY 4.0 International license It is made available under a author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.