A Control Approach to Guide Nonpharmaceutical Interventions in the Treatment of COVID-19 Disease Using a SEIHRD Dynamical Model

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Abstract

The recent worldwide epidemic of COVID-19 disease, for which there are no medications to cure it and the vaccination is still at an early stage, led to the adoption of public health measures by governments and populations in most of the affected countries to avoid the contagion and its spread. These measures are known as nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), and their implementation clearly produces social unrest as well as greatly affects the economy. Frequently, NPIs are implemented with an intensity quantified in an ad hoc manner. Control theory offers a worthwhile tool for determining the optimal intensity of the NPIs in order to avoid the collapse of the healthcare system while keeping them as low as possible, yielding concrete guidance to policymakers. A simple controller, which generates a control law that is easy to calculate and to implement is proposed. This controller is robust to large parametric uncertainties in the model used and to some level of noncompliance with the NPIs.

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.27.20115295: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.


    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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