Hard lockdowns have left policymakers to face the ethical dilemma of choosing between saving lives and saving the economy. However, massive testing could have helped to respond more effectively to Covid-19 crisis. In this paper, we study the trade-off between infection control, lockdown and testing. The aim is to understand how these policies can be effectively combined to contain Covid-19 without damaging the economy. An extended SIR epidemic model is developed to identify the set of testing and lockdown levels that lead to a reproduction number below one, thus to infection control and saving lives. Depending on whether the testing policy is static or dynamic, the model suggests that testing 4% to 7% of the population is the way to safely reopen the economy and the society.

中文翻译：

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Covid-19 控制与经济：测试、测试、测试*

严格的封锁使政策制定者面临在拯救生命和拯救经济之间做出选择的道德困境。但是，大规模测试可能有助于更有效地应对 Covid-19 危机。在本文中，我们研究了感染控制、封锁和检测之间的权衡。目的是了解如何有效地结合这些政策来遏制 Covid-19 而不会损害经济。开发了一个扩展的 SIR 流行病模型，以识别导致繁殖数低于 1 的一组测试和锁定级别，从而控制感染和挽救生命。根据测试政策是静态的还是动态的，该模型表明，测试 4% 到 7% 的人口是安全地重新开放经济和社会的方式。