A COVID-19 epidemic model with latency period
At the beginning of a COVID-19 infection, there is a period of time known as the exposed or latency period, before an infected person is capable of transmitting the infection to another person. We develop two differential equations models to account for this period. The first is a model that incorporates infected persons in the exposed class, before transmission is possible. The second is a model that incorporates a time delay in infected persons, before transmission is possible. We apply both models to the COVID-19 epidemic in China. We estimate the epidemiological parameters in the models, such as the transmission rate and the basic reproductive number, using data of reported cases. We thus evaluate the role of the exposed or latency period in the dynamics of a COVID-19 epidemic.
AUTHORS
Z. Liu (School of Mathematical Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, People’s Republic of China)
P. Magal (Univ. Bordeaux, France CNRS, IMB, UMR 5251, F-33400, Talence, France; Corresponding author.)
O. Seydi (Département Tronc Commun, École Polytechnique de Thiés, Senegal)
G. Webb (Mathematics Department, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA)
