Time-variant strategies for optimizing the performance of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) in protecting lives and livelihoods during the COVID-19 pandemic

Wei Aun Yap; Dhesi Baha Raja

Pushing the frontiers of efficiency. Modeling both epidemiological and non-epidemiological outcomes allows a notion of efficiency to be constructed, even without making any trade-offs between these two outcomes. Figure 9 plots an epidemiological outcome (peak prevalence) on the y-axis and a non-epidemiological outcome (the square root of the sum of daily 'acts' per person) on the x-axis. For scenarios within the shaded area, another alternative scenario can be found which is superior from either an epidemiological and/or non-epidemiological perspective. Inferior scenarios can hence be discarded from consideration unless there are other outcome dimensions not captured in these two variables which are relevant. The most optimal scenarios are at the boundary of the shaded area -the 'efficiency frontier'. Further analysis should be done to generate scenarios superior to the current frontier -either iso-epidemiological strategies (with identical epidemiological outcomes) but superior non-epidemiological outcomes (a move to the RIGHT in the figure) and/or strategies which improve epidemiological outcomes without compromising non-epidemiological outcomes (a move to the BOTTOM of the figure). is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.