The efficiency of dynamic regional lockdown approach in controlling the COVID-19 epidemic. Insights from the agent-based epidemiological model for Poland

ABSTRACT In this work properties of the dynamic regional lockdown approach to suppress the COVID-19 epidemic spread in Poland were investigated. In particular, an agent based model was used with the aim to indicate an optimal lockdown strategy, defined here as the one which minimizes mean lockdown time over regional unit provided health service is not overwhelmed. With this approach the lockdown extent was also considered by varying restrictions between complete regional school closure and/or significant social distancing in semi-public spaces. In result, a cooperative effect was discovered in the case when closure of schools was accompanied by severe restrictions of social contacts in semi-public spaces. Moreover, the regional lockdown approach implemented here on the level of counties (units of population around 100k) proofed to be successful, that is allowed to identify optimal entrance and release thresholds for lockdown. The authors believe that until significant portion of population is vaccinated such a strategy might be applied.