Projecting the Spread of COVID19 for Germany

Jean Roch Donsimoni; Rene Glawion; Bodo Plachter; Klaus Waelde

Apr First, the policy is e¤ective. Reducing contacts reduces the speed of infections and new cases of sickness -but also the transition from healthy in state 1 to healthy (with infection) in state 4: The case without shut down is illustrated by the red curve in this …gure. It is identical to the curve in …gure 5. The shut down from (16) which re ‡ects the planned closing of schools in Germany until mid April is drawn as the green curve. It reduces the rise of the number of sick individuals until mid April. Afterwards, the number of sick individuals will rise more quickly again. The peak is reached in June and this peak is lower than the one without the shut down. In this respect the shut down is a good policy measure. When the shut down is extended (the black curve), the peak is further shifted to the right and also smaller. 20 Quantitatively speaking, the shut down prolongs the epidemic in terms of its end as de…ned by t new 100 also employed in table 3 (100 or fewer new incidences are reported per day). For the shut down currently in place and for the delayed shut down, the end is beginning of July. For the longer shut down, the end is beginning of August. Concerning the peak demands on the health system, the shut down as currently in place, and also an extended shut down, hardly have any e¤ect. There is a certain delay -which helps the health sector to prepare for higher numbers in the future. But the level of the peak, as the …gure shows, hardly changes. This looks like a bleak outlook.