Figure 7

(a) Comparison of the optimal (dashed) and near optimal (dotted) control of the mean contact reduction. In the near optimal control, the strengthening of the measures in the final phase of the intervention is omitted. Instead, the near optimal control adheres to the stability boundary (14) and causes an overshoot of the susceptible population below the stability threshold (\(S (T )< N (T )/\mathcal{R}_{0}\)), (b) Plot of the corresponding effective reproduction number