An age-dependent immuno-epidemiological model with distributed recovery and death rates.

The work is devoted to a new immuno-epidemiological model with distributed recovery and death rates considered as functions of time after the infection onset. Disease transmission rate depends on the intra-subject viral load determined from the immunological submodel. The age-dependent model includes the viral load, recovery and death rates as functions of age considered as a continuous variable. Equations for susceptible, infected, recovered and dead compartments are expressed in terms of the number of newly infected cases. The analysis of the model includes the proof of the existence and uniqueness of solution. Furthermore, it is shown how the model can be reduced to age-dependent SIR or delay model under certain assumptions on recovery and death distributions. Basic reproduction number and final size of epidemic are determined for the reduced models. The model is validated with a COVID-19 case data. Modelling results show that proportion of young age groups can influence the epidemic progression since disease transmission rate for them is higher than for other age groups.

An Epidemic Model with Time Delay Determined by the Disease Duration

Immuno-epidemiological models with distributed recovery and death rates can describe the epidemic progression more precisely than conventional compartmental models. However, the required immunological data to estimate the distributed recovery and death rates are not easily available. An epidemic model with time delay is derived from the previously developed model with distributed recovery and death rates, which does not require precise immunological data. The resulting generic model describes epidemic progression using two parameters, disease transmission rate and disease duration. The disease duration is incorporated as a delay parameter. Various epidemic characteristics of the delay model, namely the basic reproduction number, the maximal number of infected, and the final size of the epidemic are derived. The estimation of disease duration is studied with the help of real data for COVID-19. The delay model gives a good approximation of the COVID-19 data and of the more detailed model with distributed parameters.

An Epidemic Model with Time-Distributed Recovery and Death Rates.

A compartmental epidemiological model with distributed recovery and death rates is proposed. In some particular cases, the model can be reduced to the conventional SIR model. However, in general, the dynamics of epidemic progression in this model is different. Distributed recovery and death rates are evaluated from COVID-19 data. The model is validated by the epidemiological data for different countries, and it shows better agreement with the data than the SIR model. The time-dependent disease transmission rate is estimated.

Epidemic Progression and Vaccination in a Heterogeneous Population. Application to the Covid-19 epidemic

The paper is devoted to a compartmental epidemiological model of infection progression in a heterogeneous population which consists of two groups with high disease transmission (HT) and low disease transmission (LT) potentials. Final size and duration of epidemic, the total and current maximal number of infected individuals are estimated depending on the structure of the population. It is shown that with the same basic reproduction number R0 in the beginning of epidemic, its further progression depends on the ratio between the two groups. Therefore, fitting the data in the beginning of epidemic and the determination of R0 are not sufficient to predict its long time behaviour. Available data on the Covid-19 epidemic allows the estimation of the proportion of the HT and LT groups. Estimated structure of the population is used for the investigation of the influence of vaccination on further epidemic development. The result of vaccination strongly depends on the proportion of vaccinated individuals between the two groups. Vaccination of the HT group acts to stop the epidemic and essentially decreases the total number of infected individuals at the end of epidemic and the current maximal number of infected individuals while vaccination of the LT group only acts to protect vaccinated individuals from further infection.

On a quarantine model of coronavirus infection and data analysis

Attempts to curb the spread of coronavirus by introducing strict quarantine measures apparently have different effect in different countries: while the number of new cases has reportedly decreased in China and South Korea, it still exhibit significant growth in Italy and other countries across Europe. In this brief note, we endeavour to assess the efficiency of quarantine measures by means of mathematical modelling. Instead of the classical SIR model, we introduce a new model of infection progression under the assumption that all infected individual are isolated after the incubation period in such a way that they cannot infect other people. Disease progression in this model is determined by the basic reproduction number R0 (the number of newly infected individuals during the incubation period), which is different compared to that for the standard SIR model. If R0 > 1, then the number of latently infected individuals exponentially grows. However, if R0 < 1 (e.g. due to quarantine measures and contact restrictions imposed by public authorities), then the number of infected decays exponentially. We then consider the available data on the disease development in different countries to show that there are three possible patterns: growth dynamics, growth-decays dynamics, and patchy dynamics (growth-decay-growth). Analysis of the data in China and Korea shows that the peak of infection (maximum of daily cases) is reached about 10 days after the restricting measures are introduced. During this period of time, the growth rate of the total number of infected was gradually decreasing. However, the growth rate remains exponential in Italy. Arguably, it suggests that the introduced quarantine is not sufficient and stricter measures are needed.

Extended SEIQR type model for COVID-19 epidemic and data analysis.

An extended SEIQR type model is considered in order to model the COVID-19 epidemic. It contains the classes of susceptible individuals, exposed, infected symptomatic and asymptomatic, quarantined, hospitalized and recovered. The basic reproduction number and the final size of epidemic are determined. The model is used to fit available data for some European countries. A more detailed model with two different subclasses of susceptible individuals is introduced in order to study the influence of social interaction on the disease progression. The coefficient of social interaction K characterizes the level of social contacts in comparison with complete lockdown (K=0) and the absence of lockdown (K=1). The fitting of data shows that the actual level of this coefficient in some European countries is about 0.1, characterizing a slow disease progression. A slight increase of this value in the autumn can lead to a strong epidemic burst.