Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Jun 2, 2020
Date Accepted: Jul 19, 2020
Date Submitted to PubMed: Jul 21, 2020
Multiple epidemic wave model of the Covid-19 pandemic
ABSTRACT
Background:
Intervention measures have been implemented around the world to mitigate the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. Understanding the dynamics of the disease spread and the effectiveness of the interventions is essential in predicting its future evolution.
Objective:
Our objective is to simulate the effect of different social-distancing interventions, and investigate whether their timing and stringency can lead to multiple waves (sub-epidemics), which can provide a better fit to the wavy behavior observed in the infected population curve in the majority of countries.
Methods:
We have designed and run agent-based simulations and a multiple wave model to fit the infected population data for many countries. We have also developed a novel Pandemic Response Index to provide a quantitative and objective way of ranking countries according to their Covid-19 response performance.
Results:
We have analyzed data from 18 countries based on the multiple wave (sub-epidemics) hypothesis and present the relevant parameters. Multiple waves have been identified and have found to describe the data better. Effectiveness of intervention measures can be inferred by the peak intensities of the waves. Countries imposing fast and stringent interventions exhibit multiple waves with declining peak intensities. This result strongly corroborates with agent-based simulations outcomes. We also provide an estimate of how much lower the number of infections could had been, if early and strict intervention measures had been taken to stop the spread at the first wave, as actually happened for a handful of countries. A novel index, the Pandemic Response Index, has been constructed and, based on the model’s results, an index value has been assigned to each country, quantifying in an objective manner the country’s response to the pandemic.
Conclusions:
Our results support the hypothesis that the Covid-19 pandemic can be successfully modeled as a series of epidemic waves (sub-epidemics), and that it is possible to infer to what extent the imposition of early intervention measures can slow the spread of the disease.
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