SEIRD model to study the asymptomatic growth during COVID-19 pandemic in India
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ORIGINAL PAPER
SEIRD model to study the asymptomatic growth during COVID-19 pandemic in India S Chatterjee, A Sarkar, M Karmakar, S Chatterjee and R Paul* Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Kolkata 700032, India Received: 05 June 2020 / Accepted: 16 September 2020
Abstract: According to the current perception, symptomatic, presymptomatic and asymptomatic infectious persons can infect the healthy population susceptible to the SARS-CoV-2. More importantly, various reports indicate that the number of asymptomatic cases can be several-fold higher than the reported symptomatic cases. In this article, we take the reported cases in India and various states within the country till September 1, as the specimen to understand the progression of the COVID-19. Employing a modified SEIRD model, we predict the spread of COVID-19 by the symptomatic as well as asymptomatic infectious population. Considering reported infection primarily due to symptomatic, we compare the model predicted results with the available data to estimate the dynamics of the asymptomatically infected population. Our data indicate that in the absence of the asymptomatic infectious population, the number of symptomatic cases would have been much less. Therefore, the current progress of the symptomatic infection can be reduced by quarantining the asymptomatically infectious population via extensive or random testing. This study is motivated strictly toward academic pursuit; this theoretical investigation is not meant for influencing policy decisions or public health practices. Keywords: COVID-19; SARS; SEIRD; Asymptomatic; Computational
1. Introduction At the beginning of the outbreak of COVID-19, the general perception was that the transmission of the disease occurred mostly through the infectious persons having influenzalike symptoms. One reason behind this view was the similarities between the SARS pandemic in 2003 caused by SARS-CoV-1 and the current threat of COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2. Both SARS and COVID-19 patients show similar influenza-like symptoms, propagate infections through person-to-person contact via respiratory droplets generated when an infected person breathes, coughs and sneezes. Measures taken to successfully control the SARS in 2003 were majorly based on testing those having symptoms and isolating the positive cases. Nevertheless, a similar guideline has not been very effective in controlling the COVID-19 as the number of infected individuals has gone past 4 million in India and 27 million worldwide. Despite severe containment measures, these numbers are several orders of magnitude higher than SARS
*Corresponding author, E-mail: [email protected]
in 2003 that reported 8422 cases worldwide with a case fatality rate of 11%. In India, even when the nation was under lockdown over the past few months, a noticeable surge in the new COVID-19 positive cases was observed (Fig. 1). Initially, when the nationwide lockdown was enforced on March 23, the infection growth showed a gradual slowdown for a few weeks. However, as
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