Epidemic control via stochastic optimal control

Abstract: We study the problem of optimal control of the stochastic SIR model. Models of this type are used in mathematical epidemiology to capture the time evolution of highly infectious diseases such as COVID-19. Our approach relies on reformulating the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation as a stochastic minimum principle. This results in a system of forward backward stochastic differential equations, which is amenable to numerical solution via Monte Carlo simulations. We present a number of numerical solutions of the system under a variety of scenarios.