Effective pandemic policy design through feedback does not need accurate predictions.

ABSTRACT: The COVID-19 pandemic has had an enormous toll on human health and well-being and led to major social and economic disruptions. Public health interventions in response to burgeoning case numbers and hospitalizations have repeatedly bent down the epidemic curve, effectively creating a feedback control system. Worst case scenarios have been avoided in many places through this responsive feedback. We aim to formalize and illustrate how to incorporate principles of feedback control into pandemic projections and decision-making, and ultimately shift the focus from prediction to the design of interventions. Starting with an epidemiological model for COVID-19, we illustrate how feedback control can be incorporated into pandemic management using a simple design that couples recent changes in case

SUBMITTER: van Heusden K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10021468 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature