Economic recovery forecasts under impacts of COVID-19.

This paper proposes a joint model by combining the time-varying coefficient susceptible-infected-removal model with the hierarchical Bayesian vector autoregression model. This model establishes the relationship between several critical macroeconomic variables and pandemic transmission states and performs economic predictions under two predefined pandemic scenarios. The empirical part of the model predicts the economic recovery of several countries severely affected by COVID-19 (e.g., the United States and India, among others). Under the proposed pandemic scenarios, economies tend to recover rather than fall into prolonged recessions. The economy recovers faster in the scenario where the COVID-19 pandemic is controlled.

Optimal strategic pandemic control: human mobility and travel restriction.

This paper presents a model for finding optimal pandemic control policy considering cross-region human mobility. We extend the baseline susceptible-infectious-recovered (SIR) epidemiology model by including the net human mobility from a severely-impacted region to a mildly-affected region. The strategic optimal mitigation policy combining testing and lockdown in each region is then obtained with the goal of minimizing economic cost under the constraint of limited resources. We parametrize the model using the data of the COVID-19 pandemic and show that the optimal response strategy and mitigation outcome greatly rely on the mitigation duration, available resources, and cross-region human mobility. Furthermore, we discuss the economic impact of travel restriction policies through a quantitative analysis.