Monitoring Italian COVID-19 spread by a forced SEIRD model

PLoS One. 2020 Aug 6;15(8):e0237417. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0237417. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

Due to the recent evolution of the COVID-19 outbreak, the scientific community is making efforts to analyse models for understanding the present situation and for predicting future scenarios. In this paper, we propose a forced Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Recovered-Dead (fSEIRD) differential model for the analysis and forecast of the COVID-19 spread in Italian regions, using the data from the Italian Protezione Civile (Italian Civil Protection Department) from 24/02/2020. In this study, we investigate an adaptation of fSEIRD by proposing two different piecewise time-dependent infection rate functions to fit the current epidemic data affected by progressive movement restriction policies put in place by the Italian government. The proposed models are flexible and can be quickly adapted to monitor various epidemic scenarios. Results on the regions of Lombardia and Emilia-Romagna confirm that the proposed models fit the data very accurately and make reliable predictions.

MeSH terms

  • Betacoronavirus / isolation & purification
  • COVID-19
  • Coronavirus Infections / epidemiology*
  • Coronavirus Infections / pathology
  • Coronavirus Infections / transmission
  • Coronavirus Infections / virology
  • Disease Outbreaks
  • Humans
  • Italy / epidemiology
  • Models, Statistical*
  • Pandemics
  • Pneumonia, Viral / epidemiology*
  • Pneumonia, Viral / pathology
  • Pneumonia, Viral / transmission
  • Pneumonia, Viral / virology
  • SARS-CoV-2

Grants and funding

The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.