FIZ Special Corona: epidemics and their mathematic modelling

July 9, 2020 — The novel SARS-CoV-2 virus was first discovered in December 2019 in the city of Wuhan (China) and triggered the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. Since then, there have been more than 549,000 confirmed deaths worldwide and more than 12 million confirmed infections (Johns Hopkins University, as of July 9, 2020). At present, there is neither a vaccine nor an effective treatment for COVID-19.

In order to describe the spread of infectious diseases with immunity formation, mathematical epidemiology uses, among other things, the classical approach of the individual-based SIR model (susceptible-infected-removed model). It is named after the grouping of the population into susceptible (S), infected (I) and persons removed from the infection process (R). For the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen (Germany) have developed an SIR model that has been adapted to the current situation. Three scenarios in Germany are examined, which take no, partial or more severe restrictions of social life into account. The data of the model are from March 2020. Early and stricter restrictions have a major impact on the reduction of the number of new infections. In another model approach by Chinese scientists, a time delay was introduced to take into account the incubation period during which individuals are already infectious but asymptomatic. However, this model only considers data from China from the time period between January 23 and 9 February 09, 2020.

Read the complete paper „COVID-19 pandemic” by Dr. Octavio Paniagua Taboada, research associate of FIZ Karlsruhe.

FIZ Special Corona