Phase- and epidemic region-adjusted estimation of the number of coronavirus disease 2019 cases in China

Abstract

The outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 in China was first reported in Wuhan in December 2019 and gradually spread to other areas in China. After implementation of prevention and control measures, the estimation of the epidemic trend is needed. A phase- and region-adjusted SEIR model was applied for modeling and predicting the number of cases in Wuhan, Hubei Province and regions outside Hubei Province in China. The estimated number of infections could reach its peak in late February 2020 in Wuhan and Hubei Province, which is 55 303–84 520 and 83 944–129 312, respectively, while the epidemic peaks in regions outside Hubei Province in China could appear on February 13, 2020 with the estimated 13 035–19 108 cases. According to the estimation, the outbreak would abate in March and April all over China. Current estimation provided evidence for planned work resumption under stringent prevention and control in China to further support the fight against the epidemic. Nevertheless, there is still possibility of the second outbreak brought by the work resumption and population migration, especially from Hubei Province and high intensity cities outside Hubei Province. Strict prevention and control measures still need to be considered in the regions with high intensity of epidemic and densely-populated cities.

Keywords

SEIR model / COVID-19 / estimate / China

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Acknowledgements

This work is funded by Medicine and Engineering Interdisciplinary Research Fund of Shanghai Jiao Tong University (No. YG2020YQ06), the National Key Research and Development Project (Nos. 2018YFC1705100, 2018YFC1705103, and 2018YFC2000700) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 71673187 and 81630086), the Key Research Program（No. ZDRW-ZS-2017-1）of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Innovative research team of high-level local universities in Shanghai. We acknowledge all health-care workers involved in the diagnosis and treatment of patients all around China. We thank National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China for coordinating data collection for patients with COVID-19.

Compliance with ethics guideline

Ruijie Chang, Huwen Wang, Shuxian Zhang, Zezhou Wang, Yinqiao Dong, Lhakpa Tsamlag, Xiaoyue Yu, Chen Xu, Yuelin Yu, Rusi Long, Ning-Ning Liu, Qiao Chu, Ying Wang, Gang Xu, Tian Shen, Suping Wang, Xiaobei Deng, Jinyan Huang, Xinxin Zhang, Hui Wang, and Yong Cai declare no competing interests. The data sets analyzed for this study can be found in the reports of the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China (NHC) (http://www.nhc.gov.cn/xcs/xxgzbd/gzbd_index.shtml). This manuscript does not involve a research protocol requiring approval by the relevant institutional review board or ethics committee.

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