tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
JMIR Public Health Surveill
. 2020 Jun 26.
doi: 10.2196/18880. Online ahead of print.
General Model for COVID-19 Spreading With Consideration of Intercity Migration, Insufficient Testing and Active Intervention: Application to Study of Pandemic Progression in Japan and USA
Choujun Zhan[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Chi Kong Tse[SUP] 2 [/SUP], Zhikang Lai[SUP] 3 [/SUP], Xiaoyun Chen[SUP] 3 [/SUP], Mingshan Mo[SUP] 3 [/SUP]
Affiliations
Abstract
Background: The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) began to spread since mid December 2019 from Wuhan, China, to most provinces in China and over 200 other countries through an active travel network. Limited by the ability of the country or city in performing tests, the officially reported number of confirmed cases is expected to be much smaller than the true number of infected cases.
Objective: This study aims to develop a new Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Confirmed-Removed (SEICR) model for predicting the spreading progression of COVID-19 with consideration of intercity travel and the difference between the confirmed cases and the actual infected cases, and to apply the model to provide realistic prediction for USA and Japan under different scenarios of active intervention.
Methods: The model introduces a new state variable corresponding to the actual number of infected cases, integrates intercity travel data to track the movement of exposed and infected individuals among cities, and allows different levels of active intervention to be considered so that realistic prediction of the number of infected individuals can be performed. Moreover, the model generates future progression profiles for different levels of intervention by setting the parameters relative to the values found from the data fitting.
Results: By fitting the model with the data of the COVID-19 infection cases and the intercity travel data for Japan (January 15 to March 20, 2020) and the USA (February 20 to March 20, 2020), model parameters are found and then used to predict the pandemic progression in 47 regions of Japan and 50 states (plus a federal district) in the USA. The model reveals that as of March 19, 2020, the number of infected individuals in Japan and the USA could be twenty-fold and five-fold as many as the number of confirmed cases, respectively. Results show that without tightening the implementation of active intervention, Japan and the USA will see about 6.55% and 18.% of the population eventually infected, and with drastic ten-fold elevated active intervention, the number of people eventually infected can be reduced by up to 95% in Japan and 70% in the USA.
Conclusions: The new SEICR model has revealed the effectiveness of active intervention for control the spread of COVID-19. Stepping up active intervention would be more effective for Japan, while raising the level of vigilance of the public in maintaining personal hygiene and social distancing is comparatively more important for the USA.
. 2020 Jun 26.
doi: 10.2196/18880. Online ahead of print.
General Model for COVID-19 Spreading With Consideration of Intercity Migration, Insufficient Testing and Active Intervention: Application to Study of Pandemic Progression in Japan and USA
Choujun Zhan[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Chi Kong Tse[SUP] 2 [/SUP], Zhikang Lai[SUP] 3 [/SUP], Xiaoyun Chen[SUP] 3 [/SUP], Mingshan Mo[SUP] 3 [/SUP]
Affiliations
- PMID: 32589145
- DOI: 10.2196/18880
Abstract
Background: The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) began to spread since mid December 2019 from Wuhan, China, to most provinces in China and over 200 other countries through an active travel network. Limited by the ability of the country or city in performing tests, the officially reported number of confirmed cases is expected to be much smaller than the true number of infected cases.
Objective: This study aims to develop a new Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Confirmed-Removed (SEICR) model for predicting the spreading progression of COVID-19 with consideration of intercity travel and the difference between the confirmed cases and the actual infected cases, and to apply the model to provide realistic prediction for USA and Japan under different scenarios of active intervention.
Methods: The model introduces a new state variable corresponding to the actual number of infected cases, integrates intercity travel data to track the movement of exposed and infected individuals among cities, and allows different levels of active intervention to be considered so that realistic prediction of the number of infected individuals can be performed. Moreover, the model generates future progression profiles for different levels of intervention by setting the parameters relative to the values found from the data fitting.
Results: By fitting the model with the data of the COVID-19 infection cases and the intercity travel data for Japan (January 15 to March 20, 2020) and the USA (February 20 to March 20, 2020), model parameters are found and then used to predict the pandemic progression in 47 regions of Japan and 50 states (plus a federal district) in the USA. The model reveals that as of March 19, 2020, the number of infected individuals in Japan and the USA could be twenty-fold and five-fold as many as the number of confirmed cases, respectively. Results show that without tightening the implementation of active intervention, Japan and the USA will see about 6.55% and 18.% of the population eventually infected, and with drastic ten-fold elevated active intervention, the number of people eventually infected can be reduced by up to 95% in Japan and 70% in the USA.
Conclusions: The new SEICR model has revealed the effectiveness of active intervention for control the spread of COVID-19. Stepping up active intervention would be more effective for Japan, while raising the level of vigilance of the public in maintaining personal hygiene and social distancing is comparatively more important for the USA.