Mathematical modeling of COVID-19 containment strategies with considerations for limited medical resources

Brydon Eastman; Cameron Meaney; Michelle Przedborski; Mohammad Kohandel

For numerical simulations, it was also necessary to make an assumption about the effective day on which social distancing began in each province. It is likely that some degree of social distancing began prior to the widespread adoption in the population and the enforcement of social distancing policies by government officials as the public became progressively more aware of the severity of the pandemic. For consistency and simplicity, in the Distancing-SEIRD model, the adherence to social distancing among the population was assumed to have begun on the date of provincial declaration of a state of emergency -March 17, 2020 for Ontario and March 27, 2020 for Quebec. Under these assumptions, the Distancing-SEIRD model was solved for Ontario and Quebec, where day one of the simulations was chosen to be the date of the first confirmed SARS-CoV-2 case in Canada, which is January 25, 2020 [4] . Thus, social distancing was assumed to start on day 62 of the pandemic in Quebec, and day 52 of the pandemic in Ontario.