Abstract
In order to recover the damage to the economy by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, many countries consider the transition from strict lockdowns to partial lockdowns through relaxation of preventive measures. In this work, we propose an optimal lockdown relaxation strategy, which is aimed at minimizing the damage to the economy, while confining the COVID-19 incidence to a level endurable by the available healthcare facilities in the country. In order to capture the transmission dynamics, we adopt the compartment models and develop the relevant optimization model, which turns out to be nonlinear. We generate approximate solutions to the problem, whereas our experimentation is based on the data on the COVID-19 outbreak in Sri Lanka.
Highlights
Introduction e ongoing pandemic of theCOVID-19, which has recently been declared by the World Health Organization as the eradefining global health crisis [1], is an unprecedented threat to the world
The COVID-19 incidence by province as per 11th May was taken as the initial condition. is selection of initial condition is a realistic choice required by the model, as it is the day the country started undergoing relaxations
Lockdowns with strict travel restrictions were implemented in several countries to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic
Summary
Sri Lanka reported the first COVID-19 case in a Chinese tourist on 27th January 2020 and subsequently in a local person on 11th March 2020. A strict strategy of lockdown was enforced together with other preventive measures including case detection, identification of contacts, quarantine, travel restrictions, and isolation of small villages as well. Despite those preventive measures, the pandemic continues to threaten the public with daily reported cases. Sri Lankan economy was slowly recovering from the Easter Sunday attacks in April 2019, and the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) was expecting an economic growth of 4.5–5% together with the political stability after the recently held presidential elections In this context, a continuing lockdown was regarded as quite impossible for the small island nation. Several previous works on epidemiology have pointed out the significance of human mobility to the transmission of COVID-19 [12, 13]. erefore, the relaxation of travel restrictions must put a different complexion on the matter and make the post-lockdown period significantly different to the 52 days’ lockdown period
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