How Containment Can Effectively Suppress the Outbreak of COVID-19: A Mathematical Modeling

Abstract

In this paper, the aim is to capture the global pandemic of COVID-19 with parameters that consider the interactions among individuals by proposing a mathematical model. The introduction of a parsimonious model captures both the isolation of symptomatic infected individuals and population lockdown practices in response to containment policies. Local stability and basic reproduction numbers are analyzed. Local sensitivity indices of the parameters of the proposed model are calculated, using the non-normalization, half-normalization, and full-normalization techniques. Numerical investigations show that the dynamics of the system depend on the model parameters. The infection transmission rate (as a function of the lockdown parameter) for both reported and unreported symptomatic infected peoples is a significant parameter in spreading the infection. A nationwide public lockdown decreases the number of infected cases and stops the pandemic’s peak from occurring. The results obtained from this study are beneficial worldwide for developing different COVID-19 management programs.

Keywords

• SEIHR model
• lockdown
• epidemic peak
• basic reproductive number
• containment policies
• sensitivity analysis