When strong mitigation against a pandemic backfires

Abstract

I introduce social feasibility constraints in a SIR epidemiological model: at any point in time, the ability of a social planner to impose mitigation measures is limited, but it is increasing in the proportion of infected individuals. When considering threshold policies with constant levels of mitigation for a time period, the overall fatality rate in the population is non-monotonic in the levels of mitigation: higher levels of mitigation can increase the overall fatality rate. Intuitively, strong mitigation at a point in time can undermine the social feasibility of future mitigation.