Assessment of Vaccination and Underreporting on COVID-19 Infections in Turkey Based On Effective Reproduction Number

Kose, E.; Akman Yildiz, T.; Tuncer, N.

In this paper, we introduce a SEIR type COVID-19 model where the infected class is further divided into individuals in intensive care (ICUs) and ventilation units. The model is validated with the COVID-19 cases, deaths, and the number of patients in ICUs and ventilation units as reported by Turkey Department of Health for the period March 11 through May 30 when the nationwide lockdown is in order. COVID-19 interventions in Turkey are incorporated into the model to detect the future trend of the outbreak accurately. The lockdown is lifted on June 1, and the model is modified to include a time dependent transmission rate which is linked to the effective reproduction number Rt through basic reproduction number R0. The modified model captures the changing dynamics and peaks of the outbreak successfully. With the onset of vaccination on 13 January 2021, we augment the model with the vaccination class to investigate the impact of vaccination rate and efficacy. We observe that vaccination rate is a more critical parameter than the vaccine efficacy to eliminate the disease successfully.