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SUMMARY:Health Economics @ Cambridge seminar: On the Management of Populat
 ion Immunity - Dr Flavio Toxvaerd\, Faculty of Economics\, University of C
 ambridge
DTSTART:20161017T140000Z
DTEND:20161017T150000Z
UID:TALK67025@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Ed Wilson
DESCRIPTION:This paper considers a susceptible-infected-recovered type mod
 el of an infectious disease\, such as swine flu\, in which costly treatmen
 t or vaccination confers immunity on recovered individuals. Once recovered
 \, individuals become immune and thus indirectly protect the remaining sus
 ceptibles\, who benefit from a measure of herd immunity. \n\nIt is shown t
 hat under decentralized decision making\, infected individuals ignore the 
 externalities that their decisions have on susceptible individuals and thu
 s seek treatment or vaccination only if it is privately optimal to do so. 
 In contrast\, a benevolent central planner who does take this externality 
 into account in choosing the level of aggregate treatment or vaccination\,
  may choose to either eradicate the disease or to retard its eventual diss
 emination into the population. \n\nOptimal treatment is shown to involve i
 ntervention at early stages of the epidemic. In contrast\, optimal vaccina
 tion defers intervention to later stages of the epidemic. Thus\, while tre
 atment and vaccination have superficial similarities\, their effects and d
 esirability at different stages of the epidemic are radically different.\n
LOCATION:Large Seminar Room\, 1st Floor\, Institute of Public Health\, Uni
 versity Forvie Site\, Robinson Way\, Cambridge
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