ABSTRACT
The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a global public health crisis due to its high contagious characteristics. In this article, we propose a new epidemic-dynamics model combining the transmission characteristics of COVID-19 and then use the reported epidemic data from 15 February to 30 June to simulate the spread of the Italian epidemic. Numerical simulations showed that (1) there was a remarkable amount of asymptomatic individuals;(2) the lockdown measures implemented by Italy effectively controlled the spread of the outbreak;(3) the Italian epidemic has been effectively controlled, but SARS-CoV-2 will still exist for a long time;and (4) the intervention of the government is an important factor that affects the spread of the epidemic.