Evaluation of the potential incidence of COVID-19 and effectiveness of contention measures in Spain: a data-driven approach

Alberto Aleta; Yamir Moreno

As with any other novel disease, governments, public health services and the scientific community have been working towards stopping the spreading of COVID-19 as soon as possible and with the lowest possible impact on the population [4, [7] [8] [9] . From a scientific point of view, there are two course of actions that can be followed. On the one hand, new vaccines and pharmaceutical interventions need to be developed. This usually requires months of work. Therefore, on the other hand, it is important to study the large-scale spatial spreading of the disease through mathematical and computational modeling, which allows evaluating "in-silicon" what-if-scenarios and potential contention measures to stop or delay the disease. This modeling effort is key, as it can contribute to maximize the effectiveness of any protection measures and gain time to develop new drugs or a vaccine to protect the population. Here, we follow the modeling path and analyze, through a data-driven stochastic SEIR-metapopulation model, the temporal and spatial transmission of the COVID-19 disease in Spain as well as the expected impact of possible and customary contention measures.