Modeling COVID-19 infection in a confined space
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Modeling COVID-19 infection in a confined space Zishuo Yan · Yueheng Lan
Received: 29 April 2020 / Accepted: 3 July 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract In this paper, we construct a stochastic model of the 2019-nCoV transmission in a confined space, which gives a detailed account of the interaction between the spreading virus and mobile individuals. Different aspects of the interaction at mesoscopic level, such as the human motion, the shedding and spreading of the virus, its contamination and invasion of the human body and the response of the human immune system, are touched upon in the model, their relative importance during the course of infection being evaluated. The model provides a bridge linking the epidemic statistics to the physiological parameters of individuals and may serve a theoretical guidance for epidemic prevention and control. Keywords 2019-nCoV · Stochastic model · Epidemic prevention and control · Confined space 1 Introduction The novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) was first widely known after the detection of unexplained pneumonia Z. Yan School of Science, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China e-mail: [email protected] Y. Lan (B) School of Science, State Key Lab of Information Photonics and Optical Communications, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China e-mail: [email protected]
in the early 2020. Due to the lack of knowledge on this newly emerging virus, the 2019-nCoV began to spread rapidly and a large outbreak of the disease was globally reported. As the research goes on, a serious yet common scenario is the possibility of the aerial spreading in a relatively closed environment. Today’s world is characterized with large traffic flows at all scales. As a result, a large number of people stay in a closed space like cars, trains and airplanes often for quite long. Even if there is no contact between people, the airborne virus may still cause infection. For example, the Diamond Princess, the world’s most luxurious ocean liner, had on board more than 3700 people. A passenger was confirmed the 2019-nCoV infection on February 1st, which was followed with a total of 691 infections by the date of February 24th, with an infection rate of 18.6% [1]. With the pandemic inflicting the globe, a large number of passengers return home by air or other means of transportation. Due to the strict prevention and control measures of many governments, local traffic flows of people are restricted and residential areas become relatively isolated. According to statistics [2], humans spend 87% of their time indoors and 6% in confined microenvironments, e.g., vehicles. Therefore, living and working in a closed environment constitutes the main scene in our everyday life. Studying the dynamics of infection in a closed or semi-enclosed environment is of great significance for the ongoing and future epidemic prevention and control. After the outbreak of the epidemic, much research [3–5] has been done to describe its development
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