Control dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic in China and South Korea

Moreira, J. M. L.

Social isolation measures reduce the population's infection rate with the COVID-19 virus, but its effectiveness is difficult to quantify. The successful control of the pandemic carried out by China and South Korea is studied using a scheme based on the net relative rate of infection which is very sensitive to sudden changes in the epidemic evolution. The net relative rate of infection for China and South Korea without containment measures, that is, with free proliferation of the virus, lies between 10 and 40 %/day or doubling times of infected persons between 3.5 and 2 days. After measures of containment it dropped and stabilized. South Korea stabilized it around 1 %/day and China around 0.05 %/day with doubling times of 70 days and 1400 days, respectively. A discussion is provided about their processes of control and stabilization of the epidemic process and about the scheme used to study them.