Mathematical Properties of Strategies to Control Epidemic Outbreaks in the Context of SEIR Models with Multiple Infectious Stages

TL;DR

This paper mathematically analyzes control strategies in SEIR epidemic models with multiple infectious stages, revealing limits on infection reduction and the importance of timing and duration of interventions, exemplified with COVID-19.

Contribution

It introduces a mathematical framework for control strategies in complex SEIR models, showing how they influence epidemic dynamics and long-term infection limits.

Findings

Control strategies lead to non-autonomous differential systems.

There exists a maximum susceptible population at attractors, limiting infections.

Timing and duration of control significantly affect epidemic outcomes.

Abstract

In this work we analyze mathematically the consequences and effectiveness of strategies to control an epidemic in the framework of classical SEIR models with multiple parallel infectious stages. We define the mathematical concept of a control strategy, showing that it implies turning classic epidemiological models into systems of non-autonomous differential equations. The analysis of these non-autonomous systems is based on the two main results obtained in this work: the first establishes a condition that implies a dynamic without epidemic outbreaks; the second establishes a maximum value for the susceptible population associated to the fixed points that are attractors, moreover, we proof that any trajectory converges to some of these attractors. An important consequence of this last result is the existence of an insurmountable limit on the number of infected individuals after the end of a given control strategy. This restriction can only be mitigated by changing the maximum value of susceptible population associated to the system attractors, which could only be done with permanent control action, that is, without returning to normality. Another interesting result of our work is to show how the moment to start and the way how the control strategy ends strongly impacts the asymptotic value for the total number of infected individuals. We illustrate our analysis and results in a SEIR model (with two or three parallel stages) applied to describe the COVID-19 epidemic.