We have developed a predictive model for COVID-19 that considers, for the first time,
its intercoupled effect on both economic and health
(deaths and hospitalizations) outcomes for different quarantine policies.
We analyzed three different scenarios and
concluded that the best policy to balance health and economic outcomes
after an initial lockdown, would be to keep seniors in place and
release non-seniors only gradually and after the first pandemic wave is over.
Furthermore, we performed a sensitivity analysis to study the effect of
reducing the contagiousness of asymptomatic infected individuals.
Our results suggest that public health measures that restrict disease spread outside
of quarantine (e.g., social distancing, masks, avoiding crowded places) are important
for policymakers to invest in.
A diagram summarizing the results of our research for three scenarios (the Source, WUSTL, May 8, 2020).