Global analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic using simple epidemiological models

Loading...
Thumbnail Image

Date

2021

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Elsevier

Abstract

Several analytical models have been developed in this work to describe the evolution of fatalities arising from coronavirus COVID-19 worldwide. The Death or ‘D’ model is a simplified version of the well-known SIR (susceptible-infected-recovered) compartment model, which allows for the transmission-dynamics equations to be solved analytically by assuming no recovery during the pandemic. By fitting to available data, the D-model provides a precise way to characterize the exponential and normal phases of the pandemic evolution, and it can be extended to describe additional spatial-time effects such as the release of lockdown measures. More accurate calculations using the extended SIR or ESIR model, which includes recovery, and more sophisticated Monte Carlo grid simulations – also developed in this work – predict similar trends and suggest a common pandemic evolution with universal parameters. The evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic in several countries shows the typical behavior in concord with our model trends, characterized by a rapid increase of death cases followed by a slow decline, typically asymmetric with respect to the pandemic peak. The fact that the D and ESIR models predict similar results – without and with recovery, respectively – indicates that COVID-19 is a highly contagious virus, but that most people become asymptomatic (D model) and eventually recover (ESIR model).

Description

Keywords

COVID-19 coronavirus, Death model, Extended SIR model, Monte Carlo Planck model

Citation

Nicolás Orce, J. et al. (2021). Global analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic using simple epidemiological models. Applied Mathematical Modelling, 90, 995-1008