Lockdown and social distancing restrictions have been widely used as part of policy efforts aimed at controlling the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Since these restrictions have a negative impact on the economy, there exists a strong incentive to relax these policies while protecting public health. Using a modified SEIR epidemiological model, this paper explores the costs and benefits associated with the sequential release of specific groups based on age and risk from lockdown and social distancing measures. The results in this paper suggest that properly designed staggered-release policies can do better than simultaneous-release policies in terms of protecting the most vulnerable members of a population, reducing health risks overall, and increasing economic activity.

锁定和远离社会的限制已广泛用于控制正在进行的COVID-19大流行的政策工作中。由于这些限制会对经济产生负面影响，因此有强烈的动机放松政策，同时保护公众健康。本文使用改进的SEIR流行病学模型，根据年龄和封锁和社会疏远措施带来的风险，探索了与特定人群相继释放相关的成本和收益。本文的结果表明，在保护人群中最脆弱的人群，降低总体健康风险并增加经济活动方面，设计合理的交错释放策略比同步释放策略效果更好。