The CDC response delay corresponds to the interval of time from the moment an outbreak is detected to a complete deployment of mitigation resources. Depending on the disease infectivity, CDC response delay may represent one of the most critical factors in the mitigation process. Figure 10 shows how the performance of both policies was significantly impacted by this factor. The DPO policy showed a uniformly better performance with the difference ranging between $3B to $4B in the average total cost, and between 800 to 1,800 in the average number of mortalities, over the range (24- Figure 10 : Sensitivity analysis for CDC response delay.