Optimal Lockdown Management using Short Term COVID-19 Prediction Model

This paper proposes optimal lockdown management policies based on short-term prediction of active COVID-19 confirmed cases to ensure the availability of critical medical resources. The optimal time to start the lockdown from the current time is obtained after maximizing a cost function considering economic value subject to constraints of availability of medical resources, and maximum allowable value of daily growth rate and Test Positive Ratio. The estimated value of required medical resources is calculated as a function of total active cases. The predicted value of active cases is calculated using an adaptive short-term prediction model. The proposed approach can be easily implementable by a local authority. An optimal lockdown case study for Delhi during the second wave in the month of April 2021 is presented using the proposed formulation.