Relieving Cost of Epidemic by Parrondo's Paradox: A COVID‐19 Case Study

Abstract

COVID‐19, also known as SARS‐CoV‐2, is a coronavirus that is highly pathogenic and virulent. It spreads very quickly through close contact, and so in response to growing numbers of cases, many countries have imposed lockdown measures to slow its spread around the globe. The purpose of a lockdown is to reduce reproduction, that is, the number of people each confirmed case infects. Lockdown measures have worked to varying extents but they come with a massive price. Nearly every individual, community, business, and economy has been affected. In this paper, switching strategies that take into account the total “cost” borne by a community in response to COVID‐19 are proposed. The proposed cost function takes into account the health and well‐being of the population, as well as the economic impact due to the lockdown. The model allows for a comparative study to investigate the effectiveness of various COVID‐19 suppression strategies. It reveals that both the strategy to implement a lockdown and the strategy to maintain an open community are individually losing in terms of the total “cost” per day. However, switching between these two strategies in a certain manner can paradoxically lead to a winning outcome—a phenomenon attributed to Parrondo's paradox.

Development and validation of the patient history COVID-19 (PH-Covid19) scoring system: a multivariable prediction model of death in Mexican patients with COVID-19

“…However, strict quarantines have an important social and economic impact, and countries such as Mexico have not been able to endure prolonged quarantines, resulting in a sustained transmission and death toll. Novel strategies such as switching between closures and keeping communities open [7], and regionalising closures in a timely manner [8] could provide useful in limiting the impact of COVID-19 in complex countries such as Mexico.…”

Non-specific blood tests as proxies for COVID-19 hospitalisation: are there plausible associations after excluding noisy predictors?

“…In countries with porous containment efforts, hospital occupancy is a critical metric [ 39 ] to alternate between ‘soft lockdown’ and economic activity with ‘constrained mobility’. As some regions with sustained transmission are hesitant and being pushed towards these states, they are poorly capturing the benefits of the switching strategy (Parrondo's paradox applied to epidemics [ 40 ]) – because they are struggling in trial and error mode to establish thresholds of when to restrain (and open) and at what pace. Due to the fast saturation of hospital infra-structures with overshooting in these regions, the tendency of excessive losses in each transition is hard to manage.…”

A discussion on implementing pooling detection tests of novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) for a large population

“…There were only 0.75 million confirmed cases in the end of March, 25 million in the end of August, 50 million in the beginning of November and over 70 million in December 2020 all over the world [ 1 ]. Lockdown measures were imposed [ 4 ] to slow its spread. Most countries have to close their borders with appropriate quarantine containment schemes [ 5 , 6 ] for weeks, affecting normal life and business activities.…”

“…Globalisation is seriously affected under such conditions. Different views on the impact of different waves of infection [ 4 , 7 ] were also reported. Quick identification tests for the SARS-CoV-2 virus is needed regularly for millions of people.…”