  Analysis of policies for managing epidemics require simultaneously an
economic and epidemiological perspective. We adopt a cost-of-policy framework
to model both the virus spread and the cost of handling the pandemic. Because
it is harder and more costly to fight the pandemic when the circulation is
higher, we find that the optimal policy is to go to zero or near-zero case
numbers. Without imported cases, if a region is willing to implement measures
to prevent spread at one level in number of cases, it must also be willing to
prevent the spread with at a lower level, since it will be cheaper to do so and
has only positive other effects. With imported cases, if a region is not
coordinating with other regions, we show the cheapest policy is continually low
but nonzero cases due to decreasing cost of halting imported cases. When it is
coordinating, zero is cost-optimal. Our analysis indicates that within Europe
cooperation targeting a reduction of both within country transmission, and
between country importation risk, should help achieve lower transmission and
reduced costs.
