Dynamics of epidemics: Impact of easing restrictions and control of infection spread

• Published in: Chaos, solitons and fractals solitons and fractals, 2021-01, Vol.142, p.110431-110431, Article 110431
• Main Authors: de Souza, Silvio L.T., Batista, Antonio M., Caldas, Iberê L., Iarosz, Kelly C., Szezech Jr, José D.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Control of infection spread; COVID-19; Easing restrictions; SEIR model; Spikes of infections
• ISSN: 0960-0779; 1873-2887; 0960-0779
• DOI: 10.1016/j.chaos.2020.110431

•We investigate epidemic dynamics using a deterministic compartmental model and numerical simulations.•Examining the impact of easing restrictions on the infection rate for reopening the economy and society during COVID-19 pandemic.•A control strategy to suppress the spikes of infection cases for the period of easing containment measures. During an infectious disease outbreak, mathematical models and computational simulations are essential tools to characterize the epidemic dynamics and aid in design public health policies. Using these tools, we provide an overview of the possible scenarios for the COVID-19 pandemic in the phase of easing restrictions used to reopen the economy and society. To investigate the dynamics of this outbreak, we consider a deterministic compartmental model (SEIR model) with an additional parameter to simulate the restrictions. In general, as a consequence of easing restrictions, we obtain scenarios characterized by high spikes of infections indicating significant acceleration of the spreading disease. Finally, we show how such undesirable scenarios could be avoided by a control strategy of successive partial easing restrictions, namely, we tailor a successive sequence of the additional parameter to prevent spikes in phases of low rate of transmissibility.