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J. P. Caulkins, D. Grass, G. Feichtinger, R. Hartl, P.M. Kort, A. Fürnkranz-Prskawetz, A. Seidl, S. Wrzaczek:
"COVID-19 and optimal lockdown strategies: The effect of new and more virulent strains";
Report for ECON WPS - Working Papers in Economic Theory and Policy; Report No. 02/2021, 2021; 26 pages.

Most nations have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by locking down
parts of their economies to reduce infectious spread. The optimal timing of the
beginning and end of the lockdown, together with its intensity, is determined by the
tradeoff between economic losses and improved health outcomes. These choices can be modeled within the framework of an optimal control model that recognizes the
nonlinear dynamics of epidemic spread and the increased risks when infection rates
surge beyond the healthcare system´s capacity. Past work has shown that within such
a framework very different strategies may be optimal ranging from short to long and
even multiple lockdowns, and small changes in the valuation placed on preventing a
premature death may lead to quite different strategies becoming optimal. There even
exist parameter constellations for which two or more very different strategies can be
optimal. Here we revisit those crucial questions with revised parameters reflecting
the greater infectivity of the recently detected "UK variant" of the SARS-CoV-2
virus and describe how the new variant may affect levels of mortality and other
outcomes.

https://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/publik_295816.pdf