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World J Methodol. Sep 20, 2022; 12(5): 392-401
Published online Sep 20, 2022. doi: 10.5662/wjm.v12.i5.392
Pandemic control - do's and don'ts from a control theory perspective
Latchezar Tomov, Dimitrina Miteva, Metodija Sekulovski, Hristiana Batselova, Tsvetelina Velikova
Latchezar Tomov, Department of Informatics, New Bulgarian University, Sofia 1618, Bulgaria
Dimitrina Miteva, Department of Genetics, Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski", Sofia 1164, Bulgaria
Metodija Sekulovski, Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive care, University Hospital Lozenetz, Sofia 1407, Bulgaria
Metodija Sekulovski, Tsvetelina Velikova, Medical Faculty, Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, Sofia 1407, Bulgaria
Hristiana Batselova, Department of Epidemiology and Disaster Medicine, Medical University, Plovdiv, University Hospital "St George", Plovdiv 6000, Bulgaria
Tsvetelina Velikova, Department of Clinical Immunology, University Hospital Lozenetz, Sofia 1407, Bulgaria
Author contributions: Tomov L and Velikova T designed the research; Sekulovski M, Miteva D, and Batselova T performed the research; Tomov T contributed analytic tools; Tomov T, Velikova T, and Batselova H analyzed the data; Tomov T, Sekulovski M, Miteva D, and Batselova H wrote the paper; Velikova T revised, supervised, and edited the paper. All authors revised and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare no conflict of interest for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Tsvetelina Velikova, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Chief Doctor, Department of Clinical Immunology, University Hospital Lozenetz, Kozyak 1 Street, Sofia 1407, Bulgaria. tsvelikova@medfac.mu-sofia.bg
Received: March 16, 2022
Peer-review started: March 16, 2022
First decision: June 16, 2022
Revised: July 6, 2022
Accepted: August 10, 2022
Article in press: August 10, 2022
Published online: September 20, 2022
Core Tip

Core Tip: Controlling an epidemic is a massive challenge due to the nonlinear systems involved and interactions that are hard to model and predict well. Therefore, any pandemic control policy must apply at least the basic principles of control theory, including having multiple measures simultaneously and having models and predictions to combat the time delay between exposure and symptom onset that could lead to loss of life and controllability of the pandemic. In addition, a control-theoretic-based policy needs to factor in a large set of mutual interactions between people, animals, and pathogens that includes media and social networks and their influence on people's behavior, including fake news and the viral spread of disinformation.