Preprint Article Version 2 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

# A Compartmental Epidemiological Model for the Dissemination of the COVID-19 Disease

Version 1 : Received: 1 June 2020 / Approved: 4 June 2020 / Online: 4 June 2020 (14:47:56 CEST)
Version 2 : Received: 12 June 2020 / Approved: 12 June 2020 / Online: 12 June 2020 (12:14:28 CEST)

How to cite: Matsinos, E. A Compartmental Epidemiological Model for the Dissemination of the COVID-19 Disease. Preprints 2020, 2020060039 (doi: 10.20944/preprints202006.0039.v2). Matsinos, E. A Compartmental Epidemiological Model for the Dissemination of the COVID-19 Disease. Preprints 2020, 2020060039 (doi: 10.20944/preprints202006.0039.v2).

## Abstract

A compartmental epidemiological model with seven groups is introduced herein, to account for the dissemination of diseases similar to the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In its simplified version, the model contains ten parameters, four of which relate to characteristics of the virus, whereas another four are transition probabilities between the groups; the last two parameters enable the empirical modelling of the effective transmissibility, associated in this study with the cumulative number of fatalities due to the disease within each country. The application of the model to the fatality data (the main input herein) of five countries (to be specific, of those which had suffered most fatalities by April 30, 2020) enabled the extraction of an estimate for the basic reproduction number $R_0$ for the COVID-19 disease: $R_0=4.91(33)$.

## Subject Areas

Epidemiology; infectious disease; compartmental model; mathematical modelling and optimisation; COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2

Comment 1
Commenter: Evangelos Matsinos
Commenter's Conflict of Interests: Author
Comment: The essential difference to the first version relates to the input data from the United States (US). Inspection of the data in the website https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus (providing the input data to this study) on June 8 revealed extensive corrections in the case of the dataset from the US, spanning several weeks, and also affecting the entries in April. Due to this revision, the number of fatalities by the input-cutoff date were increased (in that dataset) by 162. All fits to the data from the US had to be (and were) made anew; the differences are tiny. This version of the study - to be considered as the final version - represents the up-to-date status, also taking into account the corrections applied to the input dataset from the US (in https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus) sometime between May 28 (last inspection prior to the submission of the first version) and June 8.
+ Respond to this comment

Views 0