Predicting the evolution and control of COVID-19 pandemic in Portugal.

Pais, Ricardo Jorge; Taveira, Nuno

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) is a world pandemic that has been affecting Portugal since 2 of March 2020. Portuguese government has been making efforts to contradict the exponential growth through social isolation measures. We have developed a mathematical model to predict the impact of such measures in the number of infected cases and peak of infection. We estimate the peak to be around 2 million infected cases by the beginning of May if no additional measures are taken. The model indicates that current measures effectively isolated 25-30% of the population, contributing for some reduction on the infection peak. Importantly, our simulations show that the infection burden can be further reduced with higher isolation degree, providing information for a second intervention.