Applications of mathematical modeling and simulation in COVID-19

In this chapter, we describe the use of mathematical and simulation tools applied in various aspects of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic through an extensive and careful review of the recently published works. We detailed the existing implementations of models dealing with (i) the spread of the disease, (ii) the prediction of new outbreaks, (iii) the existence of new variants of the virus, (iv) the effects on the at-risk population, (v) the long-term health consequences, (vi) the resource allocation for supportive staffs and clinical beds, (vii) the dynamics of transmission and how to cut the transmission chain, (viii) the impacts of travel restrictions, social distancing and early detection, (ix) the efficacy of prophylactic agents, (x) the effects of optimum interventions, (xi) the impact of existing vaccines, and (xii) the economic effects of the pandemic. © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Simulations of Social Distancing Scenarios and Analysis of Strategies to Predict the Spread of COVID-19

The pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus, although more than a year has passed since the first case, still plagues almost the whole world. Several policies have been adopted, especially related to social distancing measures, aiming to mitigate the spread of the disease. Such decisions, in general, take into account simulations capable of providing an overview of the spread of the virus in a given location. Based on the guidelines of the World Health Organization, countries have defined their own policies to fight against the disease, considering economic and social interests. Determining strategies that are increasingly efficient in modeling and simulating such phenomena is essential to support decision making in adverse circumstances. Our objective is to provide a more comprehensive view of strategies for predicting the spread of COVID-19 in the scope of computational modeling and to analyze scenarios capable of describing the impact of social distancing measures. Two different strategies are compared to characterize the virus incubation period, using particular models. Since Italy was one of the countries most affected by the pandemic, despite taking drastic measures to reduce mobility and contact between citizens, we adopt the situation of the early stages of the disease outbreak in this country to demonstrate the numerical results. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.