Should the COVID-19 lockdown be relaxed or intensified in case a vaccine becomes available?

Abstract

Immediately after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in Early 2020, most affected countries reacted with strict lockdown to limit the spread of the virus. Since that time, the measures were adapted on a short time basis according to certain numbers (i.e., number of infected, utilization of intensive care units). Implementing a long-term optimal strategy was not possible since a forecast when R&D will succeed in developing an effective vaccination was not available. Our paper closes this gap by assuming a stochastic arrival rate of the COVID-19 vaccine with the corresponding change in the optimal policy regarding the accompanying optimal lockdown measures. The first finding is that the lockdown should be intensified after the vaccine approval if the pace of the vaccination campaign is rather slow. Secondly, the anticipation of the vaccination arrival also leads to a stricter lockdown in the period without vaccination. For both findings, an intuitive explanation is offered.

The hammer and the jab: Are COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccinations complements or substitutes?

“…(2021) SEAIRD Bosi et al. (2021) SIS Buratto et al. (2022) SIR Complements Caulkins, Grass, Feichtinger, Hartl, Kort, Prskawetz, Seidl, Wrzaczek, 2021 , Caulkins, Grass, Feichtinger, Hartl, Kort, Prskawetz, Seidl, Wrzaczek, 2022 SLIR Caulkins et al.…”

“…(2021) denote this effect as “dynamic complementarity”. Buratto, Muttoni, Wrzaczek, & Freiberger (2022) also address a similar question with a stochastic arrival time of a vaccine. They find that at the time when the vaccine becomes available, the lockdown intensity is intensified discontinuously, which is a result of the additional possibility for susceptibles to obtain protection against the disease.…”

Analysis of pandemic with game methodology and numerical approximation

“…Since coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak (in 2019, in Wuhan) a huge number of articles devoted to different aspects of COVID-19 pandemic have been written (see e.g. [1,[7][8][9]12,[14][15][16]18,[21][22][23][26][27][28][30][31][32] and literature therein). In these papers we find mathematical models of infectious disease transmission dynamics.…”

“…In these papers we find mathematical models of infectious disease transmission dynamics. These models are slightly different in each of that paper, depending on aims it treats, e.g., in [9] the model extends the existing epidemiological models by specifying how a vaccine and its arrival are included in the optimization process. The understanding of development of the diseases is done by analysis and simulating of dynamics of the mathematical models depending on parameters, which the model contains.…”

“…[8,12,23,26,28]), also as evolutionary game (see e.g. [2,9,16]). Earlier, mainly control and mitigation efforts against COVID-19 are focused on the implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as lockdown of community, maintaining social distancing, using face masks in public, quarantine, isolation and hospitalization of the confirmed cases, surveillance and serology testing and contact tracing.…”