Optimally Targeted Lockdown
06 May, 2020
A new working paper by Daron Acemoglu, Victor Chernozhukov, Iván Werning and Michael Whinston study optimal lockdown policy in the framework of a standard SIR epidemic model with multiple risk groups (MR-SIR).
Policies that target different risk groups differently can help save lives and at the same time lower economic losses. The authors importantly assume, for realism, that lockdowns are imperfect, with 75% compliance, and also that mortality rises with hospital use. The model supports the use of testing as a crucial tool for targeting policy and reducing economic cost.
Link to the paper here.
Link to an online tool to visualise and experiment with possible responses to the epidemic within the model here.
Posted by Maria Perrotta Berlin
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