COVID-19 has caused an immense worldwide impact, indicating the unpreparedness of several governments in handling contagious virus outbreaks. This research uses a time-dependent model analysing the sum of the epidemiological cost, relating to the direct cost from the loss of lives, ICU hospitalisations, and COVID-19 cases as well as the utility cost, the economical cost occurring consequentially to implementing a certain policy. This sum determines the overall cost and thus efficacy of COVID-19 policies applied individually on heterogeneous communities to suppress a COVID-19 wave. The evaluated policies include a quarantining-infected-cases program, a mask mandate, social distancing measures, a complete lockdown, quarantining incoming travellers for 7 and 14 days, a partial travel ban, and a complete travel ban. For a fully susceptible community experiencing its initial COVID-19 wave, if a policy is implemented before an outbreak occurs, a 14-day quarantine is the most effective when the daily tourism intake is less than 0.137% of the population, otherwise, a mask mandate is the most productive policy. If the policy is implemented early under such a community, after only 0.001% of the population is infected, a lockdown has the highest efficacy in suppressing the wave. For later implementations under a fully susceptible community, a mask mandate is the most successful policy.For a less susceptible community that has almost reached the herd immunity threshold, if the policy is implemented before an outbreak occurs or directly after a previous local outbreak has been suppressed, a complete travel ban is the most effective policy when the community's daily tourism intake is less than 0.0274% of the total population, otherwise, a mask mandate is the most successful. For any later detection of the virus, after the outbreak occurs in a community of lower susceptibility, the mask mandate is the most efficacious individual policy in suppressing a COVID-19 wave.Although this research modelled the effectiveness of policies in suppressing the spread of COVID-19, the nature of the model makes it possible to model the same policies under future outbreaks and determine their efficacy in completely different situations. This research provides insight to applying different policies in different COVID-19 circumstances and incentivises mask mandates for communities mid-outbreak
