Optimal Control of the Coronavirus Pandemic with Impacts of Implemented Control Measures
Keywords:
Coronavirus, Epidemiological model, Objective functional, Optimality system, Pontryagin’s maximum principle, Disease prevalenceAbstract
This paper considers the current global issue of containing the coronavirus pandemic as an optimal control problem. The goal is to determine the most advantageous levels of effectiveness of the various control and preventive measures that should be attained in order to cost effectively drive the epidemic towards eradication within a relatively short time. Thus, the problem objective functional is constructed such that it minimizes the prevalence as well as the cost of implementing the various control measures subject to a model for the disease transmission dynamics which incorporates the existing controls. The optimality system of the model is derived based on Pontryagin's maximum principle while the resulting system is solved numerically using the Runge-Kutta fourth order scheme with forward-backward sweep approach. Findings from our results show that the new cases and the prevalence of the disease can be remarkably reduced in a cost effective way, if the specified optimal levels of effectiveness of the various preventive and control measures are upheld continuously for at least a month. Moreover, the results also show that the disease can be eventually eradicated if these effectiveness levels are sustained over a reasonable length of time.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
Copyright (c) 2022 Journal of the Nigerian Society of Physical Sciences

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
How to Cite
Similar Articles
- Mariya Helen, Prabhakar V, Computational investigation of free convection flow inside inclined square cavities , Journal of the Nigerian Society of Physical Sciences: Volume 4, Issue 2, May 2022
- Olayiwola Babarinsa, Graph Theory: A Lost Component For Development in Nigeria , Journal of the Nigerian Society of Physical Sciences: Volume 4, Issue 3, August 2022
- Farukh Ahmed Mulani, Waseem Ahmad Khan, Shahid Ahmad Wani, On the construction and structural analysis of Bell-enriched Appell-lambda polynomials via quasi-monomiality , Journal of the Nigerian Society of Physical Sciences: Volume 8, Issue 4, November 2026 (in progress)
- Pushap Lata Sharma, Mohini Kapalta, Ashok Kumar, Deepak Bains, Sumit Gupta, Pankaj Thakur, Electrohydro dynamics convection in dielectric rotating Oldroydian nanofluid in porous medium , Journal of the Nigerian Society of Physical Sciences: Volume 5, Issue 2, May 2023
- R. O. Oveh, O. Efevberha-Ogodo, F. A. Egbokhare, Software Process Ontology: A case study of software organisations software process sub domains , Journal of the Nigerian Society of Physical Sciences: Volume 1, Issue 4, November 2019
- Friday Obarhua, Oluwasemire John Adegboro, An Order Four Continuous Numerical Method for Solving General Second Order Ordinary Differential Equations , Journal of the Nigerian Society of Physical Sciences: Volume 3, Issue 1, February 2021
- A. B Yusuf, R. M Dima, S. K Aina, Optimized Breast Cancer Classification using Feature Selection and Outliers Detection , Journal of the Nigerian Society of Physical Sciences: Volume 3, Issue 4, November 2021
- Majid Khan Bin Majahar Ali, Shahida Shahnawaz, An inverse physics-informed neural network (I-PINN) framework for parameter estimation in mixed convection and melting effects , Journal of the Nigerian Society of Physical Sciences: Volume 8, Issue 2, May 2026
- Haitham Qawaqneh, Abdallah Shihadeh, Wael Mahmoud Mohammad Salameh, Walid Abdelfattah, Ikhtesham Ullah, Arif Mehmood, Jamil J. Hamja, Celine Tali Malabong, Strengthening the digital fortress: A Pythagorean fuzzy Dombi–Archimedean approach to network security decisions , Journal of the Nigerian Society of Physical Sciences: Volume 8, Issue 4, November 2026 (in progress)
- V. Ramanjini, G. Gopi Krishna, Mani Ramanuja, Hari Kamala Sree, S. R. Mishra, Unsteady Prandtl nanofluidic flow through stretching sheet due to mixed convection, first-order slip, and chemical reaction , Journal of the Nigerian Society of Physical Sciences: Volume 5, Issue 4, November 2023
You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.
Most read articles by the same author(s)
- Omowumi F. Lawal, Tunde T. Yusuf, Afeez Abidemi, On mathematical modelling of optimal control of typhoid fever with efficiency analysis , Journal of the Nigerian Society of Physical Sciences: Volume 6, Issue 4, November 2024

