Optimized Targeted Confinements for Future Pandemic Response

During COVID-19, many governments confined people differently by age or activity, but the value of such targeting was contested. We develop a framework that balances mortality against lost economic output and apply it to Île-de-France. Targeting by either age or activity improves on uniform policies, while targeting by both improves on either dimension alone. These gains persist when epidemiological parameters are uncertain and can even increase with greater ambiguity.

Major revision at Operations Research