A mathematical model for the spatiotemporal epidemic spreading of COVID19

Alex Arenas; Wesley Cota; Jesus Gomez-Gardenes; Sergio Gómez; Clara Granell; Joan T. Matamalas; David Soriano-Panos; Benjamin Steinegger

As our model is designed to predict the emergence of autochthonous cases triggered by local contagions and commuting patterns, those imported infected individuals corresponding to the first reported cases in Spain are initially plugged into our model as asymptomatic infectious agents. In addition, small infectious seeds should be also placed in those areas where anomalous outbreaks have occurred due to singular events such as one funeral in Vitoria leading to more than 60 contagions. Overall, the total number of infectious seeds is 47 individuals which represents 0.2 % of the number of cases reported by March 20, 2020. Figure 2 shows that our model is able to accurately predict not only the overall evolution of the total number of cases at the national scale but also their spatial distribution across the different autonomous regions. Moreover, the most typical trend observed so far is an exponential growth of the number of cases, thus clearly suggesting that the disease is spreading freely in most of the territories. Note, however, that there are some exceptions such as La Rioja or País Vasco in which some strong policies targeting the most affected areas were previously promoted to slow down COVID-19 propagation.