Effective containment explains sub-exponential growth in confirmed cases of recent COVID-19 outbreak in Mainland China

Benjamin F Maier; Dirk Brockmann

Here we propose a parsimonious epidemiological model that incorporates quarantine measures and containment policies. In addition to standard epidemiological parameters such Figure 1 . A: Confirmed case numbers in Hubei. The increase in cases follows a scaling law t µ with an exponent µ = 2.32 after a short initial exponential growth phase. On Feb 9th the case count starts deviating towards lower values. B: Aggregated confirmed cases in all other affected provinces except Hubei. C(t) follows a scaling law with exponent µ = 1.92 until Feb. 2nd when case counts deviate to lower values. The insets in A and B depict C(t) on a log-log scale. C: Confirmed cases as a function of time for the 8 most affected provinces in China. The curves follow a scaling law with exponents µ ≈ 2 with the exception of Chongqing Province (µ = 1.45) and Jiangxi Province (µ = 2.75).