Table 1. COVID-19 strategies–goals and NPI measures when infection rates rise and fall.

Strategy	Elimination	Suppression / Mitigation
Goal	• No community transmission • Eliminating COVID-19 whenever it pops up	• Controlled transmission • Living with COVID-19 but keeping fatality rates at a socially acceptable level / without losing complete control
NPIs when infection rates rise	• Maximum action to eliminate community transmission • Swift and strong response when incidence is very low	• Initially measured and gradual response, possibly even lagging, in order to “flatten the curve” • Swift and strong response only when incidence rate reaches levels implying future fatality rates deemed socially unacceptable. Stepwise and target driven approach
NPIs when infection rates fall	• Large easing steps only when incidence has reached elimination level (basically zero)	• Immediate (measured) easing steps • Larger reductions substantially before community transmission reaches elimination level

Source: authors’ compilation based on [11]. However, in contrast to [11] we do not distinguish between suppression and mitigation strategies as there is no clear benchmark that separates between (soft) suppression and (hard) mitigation. By contrast, as explained in the main text, this is the case with regard to the elimination strategy on the one hand and the suppression / mitigation strategy on the other hand. Thus, we only distinguish between elimination and suppression / mitigation strategy.