Timely Pandemic Countermeasures Reduce both Health Damage and Economic Loss: Generality of the Exact Solution

Abstract

Using physics methodology and assuming minimal and common factors of pandemic regulation, we analytically derive the general inequalities of the medical and economic costs of different pandemic countermeasures, which are applicable for phases of exponential growth. The inequalities show that early adoption of moderate countermeasures is better than intense countermeasures implemented just before a crisis in reducing the infected population and economic damage. The result is more general than that obtained in the preliminary work [J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 90, 114007 (2021)] and as robust and predictive as the irreversibility of the second law of thermodynamics. It provides guiding principles on how to implement such measures, which apply to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as future pandemics.