Modeling the spread of COVID-19 in Germany: Early assessment and possible scenarios

Maria Vittoria Barbarossa; Jan Fuhrmann; Jan H Meinke; Stefan Krieg; Hridya Vinod Varma; Noemi Castelletti; Thomas Lippert

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0238559

Modeling the spread of COVID-19 in Germany: Early assessment and possible scenarios

PLoS One. 2020 Sep 4;15(9):e0238559. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0238559. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Maria Vittoria Barbarossa^{1

2}, Jan Fuhrmann^{1

3}, Jan H Meinke³, Stefan Krieg³, Hridya Vinod Varma², Noemi Castelletti^{4

5}, Thomas Lippert^{1

3

6}

Affiliations

¹ Frankfurt Institute of Advanced Studies, Frankfurt, Germany.
² Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.
³ Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Jülich, Germany.
⁴ Institute of Radiation Medicine, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.
⁵ Statistical Consulting Unit StaBLab, Ludwig Maximilian University, München, Germany.
⁶ Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany.

Abstract

The novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), identified in China at the end of December 2019 and causing the disease COVID-19, has meanwhile led to outbreaks all over the globe with about 2.2 million confirmed cases and more than 150,000 deaths as of April 17, 2020. In this work, mathematical models are used to reproduce data of the early evolution of the COVID-19 outbreak in Germany, taking into account the effect of actual and hypothetical non-pharmaceutical interventions. Systems of differential equations of SEIR type are extended to account for undetected infections, stages of infection, and age groups. The models are calibrated on data until April 5. Data from April 6 to 14 are used for model validation. We simulate different possible strategies for the mitigation of the current outbreak, slowing down the spread of the virus and thus reducing the peak in daily diagnosed cases, the demand for hospitalization or intensive care units admissions, and eventually the number of fatalities. Our results suggest that a partial (and gradual) lifting of introduced control measures could soon be possible if accompanied by further increased testing activity, strict isolation of detected cases, and reduced contact to risk groups.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Adult
Age Factors
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
COVID-19
Child
Child, Preschool
Communicable Disease Control / methods
Communicable Disease Control / statistics & numerical data
Coronavirus Infections / epidemiology*
Coronavirus Infections / prevention & control
Coronavirus Infections / transmission
Disease Transmission, Infectious / statistics & numerical data
Germany / epidemiology
Hospitalization / statistics & numerical data
Humans
Infant
Middle Aged
Models, Theoretical*
Pandemics / prevention & control
Pneumonia, Viral / epidemiology*
Pneumonia, Viral / prevention & control
Pneumonia, Viral / transmission

Grants and funding

Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ) GmbH provided support in the form of salaries for JF, JHM, SK, and ThL, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section. The work of MVB was partially supported by the LOEWE focus Center for Multiscale Modelling in Life Sciences (CMMS). There was no additional external funding received for this study.