A conceptual model for the outbreak of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Wuhan, China with individual reaction and governmental action

Lin, Qianying; Zhao, Shi; Gao, Daozhou; Lou, Yijun; Yang, Shu; Musa, Salihu S; Wang, Maggie H; Cai, Yongli; Wang, Weiming; Yang, Lin; He, Daihai

The ongoing Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, originated in the end of 2019 in Wuhan, China, has claimed more than 2200 lives and posed a huge threat to global public health. The Chinese government has implemented control measures including setting up special hospitals and travel restriction to mitigate the spread. We propose conceptual models for the outbreak in Wuhan with the consideration of individual behavioural reaction and governmental actions, e.g., holiday extension, travel restriction, hospitalisation and quarantine. We employed the estimates of these two key components from the 1918 influenza pandemic in London, United Kingdom, incorporated zoonotic introductions and the emigration, then computed future trends and the reporting ratio. The model is concise in structure, and it successfully captures the course of the COVID-19 outbreak, and thus sheds light on understanding the trends of the outbreak.