Modeling and Forecasting Trend of COVID-19 Epidemic in Iran

Ali Ahmadi; Majid Shirani; Fereydoon Rahmani

is the (which was not peer-reviewed) The copyright holder for this preprint . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03. 17.20037671 doi: medRxiv preprint year and are less than 10 days longer than the Iranian New Year (Nowruz 1399) and New Year's with long vacations may increase visits, travels, and other activities. It is a rigorous government and health care intervention such as social distance that may be implemented more and more strictly on these days. Moreover, according to a valid scientific report, delay in the onset of symptoms until the isolation of patients plays an important role in controlling the epidemic. To control the majority of outbreaks, for R0 of 2.5 more than 70% of contacts had to be traced, and for an R0 of 3.5 more than 90% of contacts had to be traced. The delay between symptom onset and isolation had the largest role in determining whether an outbreak was controllable when R0 was 1.5. For R0 values of 2.5 or 3.5, if there were 40 initial cases, contact tracing and isolation were only potentially feasible when less than 1% of transmission occurred before symptom onset (16) . Therefore, it is recommended that efforts be made to control the epidemic with greater vigor and urgency and to conduct a daily risk assessment. In the current epidemiological situation in the world and Iran, fear control and avoidance of rumors are very important for the prevention and control of coronavirus.