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Riding the waves from epidemic to endemic: Viral mutations, immunological change and policy responses

Grass,D.
; 
Wrzaczek,S.
; 
Caulkins,J. P.
; 
Feichtinger,G.
; 
Hartl,R. F.
; 
Kort,Peter M.
; 
Kuhn,Michael
; 
Prskawetz,A.
; 
Sanchez-Romero,M.
; 
Seidl,A.
Abstract
Nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPI) are an important tool for countering pandemics such as COVID-19. Some are cheap; others disrupt economic, educational, and social activity. The latter force governments to balance the health benefits of reduced infection and death against broader lockdown-induced societal costs. A literature has developed modeling how to optimally adjust lockdown intensity as an epidemic evolves. This paper extends that literature by augmenting the classic SIR model with additional states and flows capturing decay over time in vaccine-conferred immunity, the possibility that mutations create variants that erode immunity, and that protection against infection erodes faster than protecting against severe illness. As in past models, we find that small changes in parameter values can tip the optimal response between very different solutions, but the extensions considered here create new types of solutions. In some instances, it can be optimal to incur perpetual epidemic waves even if the uncontrolled infection prevalence would settle down to a stable intermediate level.
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Publisher Copyright: © 2024 The Authors
Date
2024-04
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Tilburg University Research Output Collection
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Keywords
COVID-19, Dynamic optimization, SIR models, Vaccinations, SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being
Citation
Grass, D, Wrzaczek, S, Caulkins, J P, Feichtinger, G, Hartl, R F, Kort, P M, Kuhn, M, Prskawetz, A, Sanchez-Romero, M & Seidl, A 2024, 'Riding the waves from epidemic to endemic : Viral mutations, immunological change and policy responses', Theoretical Population Biology, vol. 156, pp. 46-65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tpb.2024.02.002
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14602/81407
License
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
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