COVID-19 epidemic: Power law spread and flattening of the curve

Verma, Mahendra K.; Asad, Ali; Chatterjee, Soumyadeep

In this paper, we analyze the real-time infection data of COVID-19 epidemic for nine nations. Our analysis is up to 7 April 2020. For China and South Korea, who have already flattened their infection curves, the number of infected individuals (I(t)) exhibits power-law behavior before flattening of the curve. Italy has transitioned to the power-law regime for some time. For the other six nations-USA, Spain, Germany, France, Japan, and India-a power-law regime is beginning to appear after exponential growth. We argue that the transition from an exponential regime to a power-law regime may act as an indicator for flattening of the epidemic curve. We also argue that long-term community transmission and/or the transmission by asymptomatic carriers traveling long distances may be inducing the power-law growth of the epidemic.