Assessing suppression strategies against epidemic outbreaks like COVID-19: the SPQEIR model

The current COVID-19 outbreak represents a most serious challenge for societies worldwide. It is endangering the health of millions of people, and resulting in severe socioeconomic challenges due to lock-down measures. Governments worldwide aim to devise exit strategies to revive the economy while keeping the pandemic under control. The problem is that the effects of distinct measures are not well quantified. This paper compares several suppression approaches and potential exit strategies using a new extended epidemic SEIR model. It concludes that while rapid and strong lock-down is an effective pandemic suppression measure, a combination of other strategies such as social distancing, active protection and removal can achieve similar suppression synergistically. This quantitative understanding will support the establishment of mid- and long-term interventions. Finally, the paper provides an online tool that allows researchers and decision makers to interactively simulate diverse scenarios with our model.