Generalized Richards model for predicting COVID-19 dynamics in Saudi Arabia based on particle swarm optimization Algorithm

Rafat Zreiq; Souad Kamel; Sahbi Boubaker; Asma A Al-Shammary; Fahad D Algahtani; Fares Alshammari

doi:10.3934/publichealth.2020064

Generalized Richards model for predicting COVID-19 dynamics in Saudi Arabia based on particle swarm optimization Algorithm

AIMS Public Health. 2020 Nov 2;7(4):828-843. doi: 10.3934/publichealth.2020064. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Rafat Zreiq^{1

2}, Souad Kamel³, Sahbi Boubaker³, Asma A Al-Shammary^{1

4}, Fahad D Algahtani^{1

2}, Fares Alshammari⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Public Health, College of Public Health and Health Informatics, University of Ha'il, Ha'il, Saudi Arabia.
² Molecular Diagnostic and Personalized Therapeutics Unit, University of Ha'il, Ha'il, Saudi Arabia.
³ Department of Computer & Networks Engineering, College of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Jeddah, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
⁴ Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Ha'il, Ha'il, Saudi Arabia.
⁵ Department of Health Informatics, College of Public Health and Health Informatics, University of Ha'il, Ha'il, Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic is spreading around the world becoming thus a serious concern for health, economic and social systems worldwide. In such situation, predicting as accurately as possible the future dynamics of the virus is a challenging problem for scientists and decision-makers. In this paper, four phenomenological epidemic models as well as Suspected-Infected-Recovered (SIR) model are investigated for predicting the cumulative number of infected cases in Saudi Arabia in addition to the probable end-date of the outbreak. The prediction problem is formulated as an optimization framework and solved using a Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm. The Generalized Richards Model (GRM) has been found to be the best one in achieving two objectives: first, fitting the collected data (covering 223 days between March 2^nd and October 10, 2020) with the lowest mean absolute percentage error (MAPE = 3.2889%), the highest coefficient of determination (R² = 0.9953) and the lowest root mean squared error (RMSE = 8827); and second, predicting a probable end date found to be around the end of December 2020 with a projected number of 378,299 at the end of the outbreak. The obtained results may help the decision-makers to take suitable decisions related to the pandemic mitigation and containment and provide clear understanding of the virus dynamics in Saudi Arabia.

Keywords: COVID-19 dynamics; Generalized Richards Model (GRM); Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO); prediction; projected end date.