Managing disease containment measures during a pandemic

Abstract

Throughout the current COVID-19 pandemic, governments have implemented a variety of containment measures, ranging from hoping for herd immunity (which is essentially no containment) to mandating complete lockdown. On the one hand, containment measures reduce lives lost by limiting the disease spread and controlling the load on the healthcare system. On the other hand, such measures slow down economic activity, leading to lost jobs, economic stall, and societal disturbances, such as protests, civil disobedience, and increases in domestic violence. Hence, determining the right set of containment measures is a key social, economic, and political decision for policymakers. In this paper, we provide a model for dynamically managing the level of disease containment measures over the course of a pandemic. We determine the timing and level of containment measures to minimize the impact of a pandemic on economic activity and lives lost, subject to healthcare capacity and stochastic disease evolution dynamics. On the basis of practical evidence, we examine two common classes of containment policies-dynamic and static-and we find that dynamic policies are particularly valuable when the rate of disease spread is low, recovery takes longer, and the healthcare capacity is limited. Our work reveals a fundamental relationship between the structure of Pareto-efficient containment measures (in terms of lives lost and economic activity) and key disease and economic parameters such as disease infection rate, recovery rate, and healthcare capacity. We also analyze the impact of virus mutation and vaccination on containment decisions.

ICU capacity expansion under uncertainty in the early stages of a pandemic

“…The operations literature on Covid‐19 focuses either on containing the demand or increasing the supply of needed resources (Table 1). The demand‐focused stream investigates “flattening the epidemic curve” (Evgeniou et al., 2022; Ferguson et al., 2020; Jain & Rayal, 2023; Perkins & Espana, 2020; Shahmanzari et al., 2022) containment measures such as lockdown or quarantine, given a fixed capacity for the ICU (or other pertinent resource). The supply‐focused stream, in which our paper is positioned, focuses on capacity expansion of ICU (or other resource) (Alban et al., 2020; Lu et al., 2021; Ouyang et al., 2020; Shi et al., 2022; Wood et al., 2020).…”

Managing pandemics: A POM perspective and directions for future research

“…• National Policies: Many public policies have been framed within a national or regional context. Some papers (e.g., Shahmanzari et al, 2023) compare these policies. However, the universe of such policies is large.…”

Medical capacity investment for epidemic disease: The effects of policymaker's confidence and public trust

“…(2021) believed that prioritizing vaccination by age and social activity can increase societal health benefits. Some studies (Kaplan, 2020; Shahmanzari et al., 2021) focus on how to better allocate resources to increase surge capacity. For example, Shahmanzari et al.…”

“…For example, Shahmanzari et al. (2021) proposed a way to increase surgical capacity without additional resources by focusing on generalized operating room planning and scheduling.…”

“…Similarly, believed that prioritizing vaccination by age and social activity can increase societal health benefits. Some studies (Kaplan, 2020;Shahmanzari et al, 2021) focus on how to better allocate resources to increase surge capacity. For example, Shahmanzari et al (2021) proposed a way to increase surgical capacity without additional resources by focusing on generalized operating room planning and scheduling.…”