An epidemiological forecast model and software assessing interventions on COVID-19 epidemic in China

Song, Peter X; Wang, Lili; Zhou, Yiwang; He, Jie; Zhu, Bin; Wang, Fei; Tang, Lu; Eisenberg, Marisa

We develop a health informatics toolbox that enables public health workers to timely analyze and evaluate the time-course dynamics of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) infection using the public available data from the China CDC. This toolbox is built upon a hierarchical epidemiological model in which two observed time series of daily proportions of infected and removed cases are emitted from the underlying infection dynamics governed by a Markov SIR infectious disease process. We extend the SIR model to incorporate various types of time-varying quarantine protocols, including government-level macro isolation policies and community-level micro inspection measures. We develop a calibration procedure for under-reported infected cases. This toolbox provides forecast, in both online and offline forms, of turning points of interest, including the time when daily infected proportion becomes smaller than the previous ones and the time when daily infected proportions becomes smaller than that of daily removed proportion, as well as the ending time of the epidemic. An R software is made available for the public, and examples on the use of this software are illustrated. Some possible extensions of our novel epidemiological models are discussed.