The Characteristics of Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Transmission Dynamics in South Korea

Kim, Yunhwan; Lee, Sunmi; Chu, Chaeshin; Choe, Seoyun; Hong, Saeme; Shin, Youngseo

where b is the human-to-human transmission rate per unit time (day) and l quantifies the relative transmissibility of hospitalized patients; k is the rate at which 50 Y. Kim, et al an individual leaves the exposed class by becoming infectious (symptomatic or asymptomatic); r is the proportion of progression from exposed class E to symptomatic infectious class I, and ð1 À rÞ is that of progression to asymptomatic class; A; g a is the average rate at which symptomatic individuals hospitalize and g I is the recovery rate without being hospitalized; g r isthe recovery rate of hospitalized patients. Using these parameters, we will estimate the transmission rate (b) and transmissibility of hospitalized (l ) in next section. In many epidemiological models, basic reproduction number is one of the key values that can predict whether the infectious disease will spread into a population or die out. It is the average number of secondary infectious cases when one infectious individual is introduced in a whole susceptible population. The basic reproduction number is calculated by the next generation matrix approach outlined in van den Driessche and Watmough [13] . As a result, the basic reproductive number R 0 for our model is: