Optimal control and cost-effectiveness analysis for a COVID-19 model with individual protection awareness.

ABSTRACT

This paper is focused on the design of optimal control strategies for COVID-19 and the model containing susceptible individuals with awareness of protection and susceptible individuals without awareness of protection is established. The goal of this paper is to minimize the number of infected people and susceptible individuals without protection awareness, and to increase the willingness of susceptible individuals to take protection measures. We conduct a qualitative analysis of this mathematical model. Based on the sensitivity analysis, the optimal control method is proposed, namely personal protective measures, vaccination and awareness raising programs. It is found that combining the three methods can minimize the number of infected people. Moreover, the introduction of awareness raising program in society will greatly reduce the existence of susceptible individuals without protection awareness. To evaluate the most cost-effective strategy we performed a cost-effectiveness analysis using the ICER method.