SARS-CoV-2 epidemic calculation in Italy by SEIR compartmental models

Abstract

Purpose – After the identification of a novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) at Wuhan, China, a pandemic was widely spread worldwide. In Italy, about 240,000 people were infected because of this virus including 34,721 deaths until the end of June 2020. To control this new pandemic, epidemiologists recommend the enforcement of serious mitigation measures like country lockdown, contact tracing or testing, social distancing and self-isolation. Design/methodology/approach – This paper presents the most popular epidemic model of susceptible (S), exposed (E), infected (I) and recovered (R) collectively called SEIR to understand the virus spreading among the Italian population. Findings – Developed SEIR model explains the infection growth across Italy and presents epidemic rates after and before country lockdown. The results demonstrated that follow-up of strict measures such that country lockdown along with high testing is making Italy practically a pandemic-free country. Originality/value – These models largely help to estimate and understand how an infectious agent spreads in a particular country and how individual factors can affect the dynamics. Further studies like classical SEIR modeling can improve the quality of data and implementation of this modeling could represent a novelty of epidemic models.

Keywords

• SARS-CoV-2
• SEIR modeling
• Growth rates
• Epidemic analysis
• Italy population