  We analyze an approach to managing the COVID-19 pandemic without shutting
down the economy while staying within the capacity of the healthcare system. We
base our analysis on a detailed heterogeneous epidemiological model, which
takes into account different population groups and phases of the disease,
including incubation, infection period, hospitalization, and treatment in the
intensive care unit (ICU). We model the healthcare capacity as the total number
of hospital and ICU beds for the whole country. We calibrate the model
parameters to data reported in several recent research papers. For high- and
low-risk population groups, we calculate the number of total and intensive care
hospitalizations, and deaths as functions of time. The main conclusion is that
countries, which enforce reasonable hygienic measures on time can avoid
lockdowns throughout the pandemic provided that the number of spare ICU beds
per million is above the threshold of about 100. In countries where the total
number of ICU beds is below this threshold, a limited period quarantine to
specific high-risk groups of the population suffices. Furthermore, in the case
of an inadequate capacity of the healthcare system, we incorporate a feedback
loop and demonstrate that quantitative impact of the lack of ICU units on the
death curve. In the case of inadequate ICU beds, full- and partial-quarantine
scenarios outcomes are almost identical, making it unnecessary to shut down the
whole economy. We conclude that only a limited-time quarantine of the high-risk
group might be necessary, while the rest of the economy can remain operational.
