Prediction of COVID-19 Spreading Profiles in South Korea, Italy and Iran by Data-Driven Coding

Choujun Zhan; Chi K. Tse; Zhikang Lai; Tianyong Hao; Jingjing Su

The 2019 Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2) is a highly contagious disease, which began to spread in China in mid December 2019 [1] , and as the volume of intercity travel escalated around the Lunar New Year period, the number of infected individuals began to soar in mid January 2020. With no travel restriction in place due to the low level of vigilance or unawareness of the disease during the early phase of the outbreak, the spreading of the disease had gone almost unobstructed. Travel restriction began to be implemented throughout China since January 24, 2020, which has proven to be effective in curbing the spread of the virus. However, international traffic has not ceased and infectious city's population), respectively, whereas the number of infected individuals in other cities in South Korea would be fewer than 300, i.e., less than 0.01% of city population. For Italy, we predict that Lombardi and Amelia Romagna would eventually have about 4,784 and 1,555 infected cases (i.e., 0.399% and 0.162 % of region's population), respectively, and the number of people eventually infected in other cities in Italy would be below 700 (<0.05% of city population). Moreover, Iran would have around 14,450 infected individuals, i.e., 0.018% of its population, of which around 2,498 and 1,698 will be expected in Tehran and Zanjan (i.e., 0.39% and 0.2% of the city's population). In addition, the number of people infected in most other cities would be fewer than 1,000 (<0.1% of the city's population). From the progression trends of the epidemic these three countries, provided control measures continue to be in place, the epidemic would come under control before the end of April 2020.