A flexible COVID-19 model to assess mitigation, reopening, virus mutation and other changes

Bienstock, S.

The COVID-19 epidemic which began in China last year has expanded worldwide. A flexible SEIRD epidemiological model with time-dependent parameters is applied to modeling the pandemic. The value of the effective reproduction ratio is varied to quantify the impact of quarantines and social distancing on the number of infections and deaths, on their daily changes. and on the maxima in these daily rates expected during the epidemic. The effect of changing Reff is substantial. It ought to inform policy decisions around resource allocation, mitigation strategies and their duration, and economic tradeoffs. The model can also calculate the impact of changes in infectiousness or morbidity as the virus mutates, or the expected effects of a new therapy or vaccine assumed to arrive at a future date. The paper concludes with a discussion of a potential endemic end of COVID-19, which might involve times of about 100 years.