[01644] Optimal epidemic interventions and the trolley problem in heterogeneous populations
Session Time & Room : 3E (Aug.23, 17:40-19:20) @A511
Type : Contributed Talk
Abstract : Interventions to mitigate the spread of infectious diseases, while succeeding in their goal, have economic and social costs associated with them; this limits the duration and intensity of the interventions. We study a class of interventions which reduce the reproduction number and find the optimal strength of the intervention which minimises the number of infections by eliminating the overshoot part of an epidemic, and avoiding a second-wave of infections. We extend the framework to a heterogeneous population and find that the optimal intervention can pose an ethical dilemma for decision and policy makers. This ethical dilemma is shown to be analogous to the trolley problem and we discuss how the problem may be avoided.
