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Propagation analysis and prediction of the COVID-19

Lixiang Li, Zihang Yang, Zhongkai Dang, Cui Meng, Jingze Huang, Hao Tian Meng,
Deyu Wang, Guanhua Chen, Jiaxuan Zhang, Haipeng Peng.
Corresponding author: [email protected]
Information Security Center, State Key Laboratory of Networking and Switching Technology, Beijing
University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China

Abstract: Based on the official data modeling, this paper studies the transmission
process of the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). The error between the model
and the official data curve is within 3%. At the same time, it realized forward
prediction and backward inference of the epidemic situation, and the relevant analysis
help relevant countries to make decisions.

Main results:
 Analysis of the epidemic situation in Hubei:
1). When will more than 10,000 confirmed coronavirus cases be completely
cured in Hubei?
Answer: The model predicts that almost all will be cured on April 1. (Fig. 1)
2). When was the earliest case in Hubei?
Answer: We find that there was already an infection on November 24. (Fig. 2)
3). How many people are infected per person (basic reproduction number)?
Answer: It is 3.8 when not under control, 0.5 after closing Wuhan city and 0.1
after closing of Wuhan community (Fig. 3)
4). What is the average incubation period of the virus?
Answer: 6 days. (Fig. 4)
5). If it is controlled 5 days in advance, how much is the infection? What if
control is lagging 5 days?
Answer: If 5 days in advance, the number of infected people will be 28000, 42%
of the current number of confirmed cases. If the control is delayed for 5 days, it will
reach 156000 people, 2.26 times of the current level. (Currently diagnosed 68000 in
Hubei) (Fig. 5)
6). What distribution does the daily infection curve satisfy, which day reaches the
peak, is February 12?
Answer: Normal distribution, the actual peak appeared on February 8. In the
official data, because the clinical diagnosis was not added before the February 12, the
data surged on the February 12 (jump to 14,840 people, cumulative results),
indicating that the previously published data did not reflect the actual infection
medRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.14.20036202. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed)
is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.
It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license .

situation. (Fig. 6)
7). The average number of days from diagnosis to cure?
Answer: In the stage of Hubei epidemic, it takes an average of 21 days for
patients from diagnosis to cure. (Fig. 1)
 International epidemic situation except China
8). How to predict the epidemic situation in South Korea?
Answer: At present, the epidemic situation in South Korea is basically under
control. According to the model, South Korea will be basically under control by the
end of March. It was found on January 7 that there was infection in South Korea
(confirmed by official broadcast January 20. In addition, we found that the basic
reproduction number before the control was 4.2 in Korea and 0.1 after the control.
(Fig. 7)
9). How to predict the development of Italian epidemic?
Answer: At present, 15000 people in Italy are infected. If not controlled, it will
increase dramatically. It will reach 200000 by the end of March. In fact, Italy began to
control on March 8. According to China's basic reproduction number (0.1) and South
Korea's basic reproduction number (0.1), it will reach 84000 by the end of March. At
present, the basic reproduction number in Italy is 4.2. According to the model
inversion, the infection was found on January 13 in Italy (2 cases were confirmed by
the official broadcast January 31). (Fig. 8)
10). How to predict the development of the epidemic in Iran?
Answer: At present, 11,000 people are infected in Iran. Our model predicts that it
will reach 20,000 people at the end of March, Through backward inference of the
epidemic situation, we found that Iran had an infection on January 13 (officially
reporting that two cases died on February 20, and there was no official data before).
The model found that the basic reproduction number in Iran before the control was
4.0 and after the control was 0.2. (The Iranian government took many measures in
early March.) (Fig. 9)

1. Specific analysis of the epidemic situation model

The epidemic data of Hubei Province is large [1], more in line with the statistical
law, and the statistical model is more able to reflect the process of virus transmission,
so we build a statistical model for the epidemic situation of Hubei Province (see the
method section later for details). Based on the data provided by National Health
Commission of China(NHCC), we have carried out accurate simulation. By
comparing the simulation results with the real data, we analyze the propagation
process and its influencing factors.
medRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.14.20036202. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed)
is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.
It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license .

1.1 Simulation comparison of epidemic model in Hubei Province

According to the comparison between the official epidemic data and simulation
data of Hubei Province (see Figure 1 for details), we can see that the model simulation
curve of the number of confirmed infections, the number of cured people and the
number of dead people matches the official data curve very well. According to the
curve of simulated number of infected persons and the curve of official number of
infected persons, we can see that there is a certain gap between the number of infected
persons before February 12, and the others are basically the same. (after the official
announced the method of clinical diagnosis of pneumonia on February 12, the data on
that day surged to 14000, indicating that the official data had some omissions before
February 12, and our model give a more accurate response to the number of actual
cases).

Fig.1. The comparison between the official epidemic data and simulation data of
Hubei Province (The curve a - Number of simulated infections. The curve b - Number
of officially confirmed infections. The curve c - Number of simulated cures. The curve
d - Number of officially cures. The curve e - Number of simulated deaths. The curve f-
Number of officially deaths.)

1.2 Simulation of the number of infected people

According to the curve of simulated infection number, we infer that by the end of
March (yellow line + light blue line = dark blue line： Number of simulated cures+
Number of simulated deaths= Number of simulated infections), all cases will be
basically treated, that is to say, more than 10000 cases in Hubei will be basically
cured and cleared. Note: the number of cases of infection on December 24 is not zero.
Because the data in Figure 1 is too large, small data cannot be displayed. For this
reason, according to the same distribution curve, we also give the simulation data
results before December 24, and the simulation found that the initial infected people
medRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.14.20036202. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed)
is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.
It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license .

had existed as early as November 24 (see Figure 2 for details). The first confirmed
infection was reported on December 8 [2].

Fig.2. Backward graph of initial epidemic curve.

1.3 Simulation of the number of the average infected people

According to the comparison chart of the average number of people infected with
a single infection (The basic reproduction number) (Figure 3), we found that the basic
reproduction number had a great impact on the spread of the epidemic. With the
increase of basic reproduction number, the total number of infected people will be
more and more, and the larger the basic reproduction number, the faster the disease
will spread. We set the basic reproduction number in the range of 3 - 4.6 for
simulation. It is found that when the basic reproduction number is 3.8, the simulated
curve (yellow line) is better close to the official confirmed number curve (red line),
that is to say, the real basic reproduction number in Wuhan should be 3.8. However,
some scholars put forward the basic reproduction number between (2.8, 3.9), and
others put forward the basic reproduction number of 2.2 [3].

Fig.3. Comparison of the basic reproduction number. (The basic reproduction

number a = 3, b = 3.5, c = 3.7, d = 3.8, f = 3.9, g=4.1, h=4.6, respectively. The curve e -
Number of officially confirmed infections.)
medRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.14.20036202. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed)
is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.
It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license .

1.4 Simulation of the average latency

Figure 4 shows the comparison chart of the average incubation period. We
simulated the days in the range of 3-9 respectively, and found that when the average
incubation period was set to 6 days, it could better fit the official curve, while the
other simulated values are quite different from the official curves. It is also found that
the shorter the incubation period, the faster the virus spreads and the greater the total
number of infections. David mentioned that the incubation period of the virus is 3-6
days, which is not accurate.
According to the previous analysis, the disease develops on average after 6 days
of incubation, and it takes an average of 5 days from the morbidity to the diagnosis
(data from CHCC)[4], that is, 5 + 6 = 11 days from the initial infection and incubation
to the diagnosis and isolation after the morbidity. Obviously, not all 11 days are
contagious. Simulations show that when the average time for contagion is set to 8
days, it fits the official curve best.

Fig.4. Comparison of the average latency. (The average latency a = 3, b = 5, c = 6, e =

7, f = 9, respectively. The curve d - Number of officially confirmed infections.)

1.5 The simulation test of the epidemic control

We know that epidemic control at different times (such as closing city) will have
an important impact on the spread of the epidemic, obviously the earlier the better.
Combined with the actual situation of Wuhan's closure from January 23, we simulated
the comparison of the spread of the epidemic situation on January 18 and January 28,
as shown in Figure 5. The red curve and the orange curve in the figure respectively
represent the official curve and the simulation curve (when the "cities were closed"
measures were taken on January 23). Obviously, the two curves match well, and the
simulated final number of infected people is 69000, which is also close to the actual
situation. If the control is started five days in advance, that is, on January 18, the blue
medRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.14.20036202. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed)
is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.
It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license .

line shows that the number of infected people is about 28000, which is 0.42 times of
the number of confirmed cases. If the measures are delayed for 5 days, it can be seen
from the yellow line that the number of people will be as high as 156000, about 2.26
times of the current number of patients. Zhong Nanshan's team once predicted that if
the closure measures were delayed for five days, the number of patients would reach
three times of the current number, i.e. 210000 [5]. Our results are more optimistic. It
can be seen from this figure that it is necessary to take timely measures to control the
spread of the epidemic, which can also be used as a reference for some overseas
countries.

Fig.5. Comparison of epidemic control at different times (The curve a - 5 days in

advance. The curve b - Control by actual days. The curve c - Number of officially
confirmed infections. The curve d - 5 days delayed.)

1.6 The simulation of daily new infections

We also studied the curve of the daily increase in the number of people(Figure 6).
Because the official did not include the imaging features of pneumonia in the clinical
diagnosis into the diagnosis conditions for statistics before February 12, 2020, the
omission and inaccuracy of the previous data caused the official data to jump on the
February 12 (the number of newly diagnosed patients in Hubei was 14840 people).As
shown in Figure 6, our simulation data meet the normal distribution, at this time, the
daily new infection data peaked on February 8, with the number of 4500. However,
the published data, due to not timely included in the clinical diagnosis image test (red
line), many patients were not diagnosed, but the curve has become a downward trend,
data deviation. For this reason, we smoothed the clinical diagnosis data on February
12, 13 and 14, and used the Gauss function of latent period. These three days were
chosen because of the sudden increase of the number of clinical diagnosis in these
three days. It can be seen from the figure that the smooth number of official daily
infected persons (black line) and the simulation curve (blue line) fit very well.
medRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.14.20036202. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed)
is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.
It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license .

Fig.6. Change curve of daily new infections. (The curve a - Simulated curve. The curve
b - Smoothed curve. The curve c - Number of officially confirmed infections.)

2 The Prediction of foreign epidemic

2.1 Analysis of Korea data
From March 2, South Korea began to implement large-scale measures to prevent
and control the epidemic situation [6]. At present, the epidemic situation in South
Korea is basically under control. Our model simulates the actual data well, and it is
found through model prediction (Figure 7). That South Korea will be basically
controlled by the end of March. We inferred from the curve and found that there was
an infection in South Korea on January 7 (the official broadcast confirmed the
diagnosis at January 20). We found that before the control, the basic reproduction
number of virus transmission in Korea was 4.2, and the basic reproduction number
after control was 0.1. (The basic reproduction number reached 4.2. We suspect that
some churches in South Korea ignored the spread of the epidemic in the early stage.)

Fig.7. Comparison of Korean epidemic simulation data and official data.(The curve
a-Number of simulated infections. The curve b-Number of officially confirmed
infections.)
medRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.14.20036202. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed)
is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.
It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license .

2.2. Analysis of Italian data

Currently, 15000 people are infected in Italy. Through simulation, we find that
(Figure 8), if we do not control (blue line) at all, it will grow explosively, reaching
200000 at the end of March. In fact, Italy began to control population flow on March
8. According to the basic reproduction number (0.1) after China's control and the
basic reproduction number (0.1) of South Korea, our model predicts that by the end of
March, the number of confirmed cases in Italy will reach 84000 (yellow line). At
present, the basic reproduction number in Italy is 4.2. According to the model
inversion, there were infected persons in Italy on January 13 (2 cases were confirmed
in Italian official broadcast January 29 [7]). (The reproduction number reaches 4.2,
which is caused by the lack of attention paid by the public to the epidemic in the early
stage.)

Fig.8. Comparison of Italy epidemic simulation data and official data. (The cuvre
a-Number of simulated infections(uncontrol).The curve b-Number of simulated
infections(partial control).The curve c-Number of officially confirmed infections.)

2.3 Analysis of Iranian data

Currently, 11000 people are infected in Iran. According to the simulation, as
shown in Figure 9, the infection data is expected to reach 20000 by the end of March,
and then it will be basically controlled by the beginning of April. It was found that
Iran had infection on January 13 (Officially announced 2 cases died on February 20,
no previous official data) [8]. The model found that the basic reproduction number of
virus transmission in Iran before control was 4.0, and the basic reproduction number
after control was 0.2. (the Iranian government took many control measures in early
March. The basic reproduction number after control is 0.2, indicating that the control
effect is not ideal.)
medRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.14.20036202. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed)
is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.
It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license .

Fig.9. Comparison of Iran epidemic simulation data and official data.(The curve
a-Number of simulated infections. The curve b-Number of officially confirmed
infections.)

3 Method and description

3.1. Transmission of the virus
Many studies have shown that virological transmission usually satisfies the
Gaussian distribution, so this article uses the Gaussian distribution to analyze the
transmission of viruses [9-10]. When we use Gaussian distribution to simulate, the
main influence is the average value, but the standard deviation has little influence, so
we will take the best accord with the objective fact variance to simulate. The basic
reproduction number is the number of people infected by a patient during the average
illness period when all are susceptible at the morbidity of the disease. The Gaussian
distribution function of D1 ~ N(x1,y1) is used to represent the propagation ability of
the virus. This formula indicates that a single infected person can infect x1 person on
average in the first stage. At this stage, x1 has a value range of (1,+ ∞), and a standard
deviation of y1=1.5.
With the development of a series of effective measures, the daily increase of the
number of infected people also decreased to a certain extent, and the transmission
ability of the disease in the population decreased. For the ability to spread disease
through this process, we still use the Gaussian distribution. When a single infected
person at this stage is able to infect an average of x2 individuals, the formula for the
capacity to transmit is, D2 ~ N(x2,y2). At this stage, the value range of x2 is general
(0,1], standard deviation of x2 is y2=2*x2. Because the medical condition of affected
area and the degree of people's activity intention directly decide the basic regeneration
number in this stage. The better the health care, the less active the population, the
smaller the x2.
In the course of disease transmission, the patient from being infected to the
medRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.14.20036202. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed)
is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.
It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license .

morbidity of disease, we call it incubation period. We assume that it takes x3 days for
people to get infected and become aware of the disease, then the incubation period
follows D3~N(x3,y3). In this model x3=6.0, the standard deviation y3=2.0.
In addition, patients can transmit the virus to other people, so we assume that the
average time from infection to transmission is x4 days, which follows D4~N(x4,y4).
According to the previous analysis, the disease develops after an average of six days
of incubation, and it takes an average of five days from morbidity to diagnosis
(according to NHCC) , that is, 5 + 6 = 11 days from the initial incubation of infection
to post- morbidity isolation. Clearly, not all 11 days are infectious, and simulations
show that setting the average number of infectious days to 8 best fits the official curve.
In this model x4=8.0, the standard deviation y4=1.5.

3.2. Cure the discharge process

The cure time of the patient is the difference between the time of hospital discharge
and the time of diagnosis, set to x5. During the epidemic period, the cure time of
patients was expressed by Gaussian distribution, that is, D5~N(x5,y5), which means
that it takes an average of x5 days for a single individual to be cured and discharged
from hospital. During the early and late stages of the epidemic, depending on the
medical condition and level of vigilance, there will be small changes to the x5. As the
epidemic continued, people's awareness of self-protection became stronger, and
hospital treatment became more effective in the late stage of the outbreak, the patient's
recovery time became shorter and shorter. In Hubei Province, the average time from
diagnosis to cure was 21 days.

3.3. Death toll

Relative to the spread of previous diseases, the early mortality rate of this disease
is also very high, mainly due to the lack of understanding of the new virus, and
secondly, the new crown virus transmission is very strong, leading to the collapse of
the medical system in the epidemic area. Due to the continuous improvement of
medical conditions and other reasons, the mortality rate of the disease has continued
to ease. We assume that the mortality rate is x6, then the mortality distribution follows
D6~N(x6,y6). The mortality rate will change in stages depending on medical
conditions. According to the CHCC, Hubei Province's current mortality rate is 4.5
percent.

4 Conclusion
In this paper, through analyzing the existing data of Hubei epidemic situation[11],
the corresponding model is established, and then the simulation is carried out. Here,
we studied the main factors affecting the spread of COVID-19, such as the number of
medRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.14.20036202. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed)
is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.
It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license .

basic regenerations, the incubation period and the average number of days of cure.
What’s more, we predicted the evolution trend of the existing epidemic data, and
found that imposing controls would have important impact on the epidemic[12]. In
addition, according to the existing data abroad, we also make bold predictions of the
epidemic development trends in South Korea, Italy, and Iran, pointing out the possible
outbreaks and the corresponding control time, and tracing the earliest transmission
dates of countries. Finally, we hope that this article can make some contributions to
the world's response to this epidemic and give some references for future research.

5 Acknowledgements
We thank Licheng Wang, Ye Tian and Yetao Lu for helpful comments and
discussions. In addition, we also thank Junying Liang, Chengwei Tong, Jiaxin Shi,
Tao Zhou, Jingyu Sun, Yameng Zhang and Huizhen Li for their contributions in data
search. This paper is supported the National Natural Science Foundation of China
(Grant Nos. 61771071, 61573067).
The data sources: http://sa.sogou.com/new-weball/page/sgs/epidemic
and https://voice.baidu.com/act/newpneumonia/newpneumonia/?from=osari_feed_tab

6 References
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[8] https://www.huxiu.com/article/344256.html
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