We introduce a deterministic SEIR model and fit it to epidemiological data for the COVID-19 outbreak in Ireland. We couple the model to economic considerations - we formulate an optimal control problem in which the cost to the economy of the various non-pharmaceutical interventions is minimized, subject to hospital admissions never exceeding a threshold value corresponding to health-service capacity. Within the framework of the model, the optimal strategy of disease control is revealed to be one of disease suppression, rather than disease mitigation.
Keywords: Optimal control; SEIR model; Simulated annealing.
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