Assessing the Tendency of 2019-nCoV (COVID-19) Outbreak in China

Liu, Qinghe; Liu, Zhicheng; Li, Deqiang; Gao, Zefei; Zhu, Junkai; Yang, Junyan; Wang, Qiao

Since December 8, 2019, the spread of COVID-19 is increasing every day. It is particularly important to predict the trend of the epidemic for the timely adjustment of the economy and industries. We proposed a Flow-SEHIR model in this paper, based on which we further analyzed the trends of 2019-nCoV (COVID-19) in China. The results show that the basic reproductive numbers R0 of COVID-19 is 3.56 (95% CI: 2.31-4.81). The number of daily confirmed new cases reaches the inflection point on Feb. 6-10 outside Hubei. For the maximum of infected cases number, the predicted peak value in China except Hubei was estimated to be 13806 (95% CI: 11926-15845). The peak arrival time is on March 3-9. The temporal number of patients in most areas of China outside Hubei will peak from March 12 to March 15. The peak values of more than 73.5% provinces or regions in China will be controlled within 1000. According to Flow-SEHIR model and estimations from the data of evacuation of nationals from Wuhan, the peak cumulative number of patients in Hubei was estimated to be 403481 (95% CI: 143284-1166936).