Optimised lockdown strategies for South Africa to curb the spread of COVID-19 Dr Laurentz Olivier Stefan Botha Prof Ian Craig
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments around the world implemented tiered lockdown strategies with varying degrees of stringency. Lockdown levels are typically increased when the disease spreads, and reduced when it abates. Researchers in the Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering have developed an epidemiological model to determine the most optimal lockdown strategy to curb the spread of the pandemic. The South African government formulated five lockdown levels with additional allowances in terms of permitted activities for each level to systematically restore economic activity. The model that was developed to determine the epidemiological impact of the lockdown levels imposed used data for the period 23 March to 16 August 2020.
The model was adapted with varying values for the spread rate under varying lockdown levels. Finally, a hybrid model predictive control was implemented to determine the optimal lockdown level over time for different policy scenarios: a “flattening the curve” scenario and a “balancing lives and livelihoods” scenario.
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