Undetected infectives in the Covid-19 pandemic.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Epidemiological investigations and mathematical models have revealed that the rapid diffusion of Covid-19 can mostly be attributed to undetected infective individuals who continue to circulate and spread the disease: finding their number would be of great importance in the control of the epidemic.

Methods

The dynamics of an infection can be described by the SIR model, which divides the population into susceptible (S), infective I, and removed R subjects. In particular, we exploited the Kermack-McKendrick epidemic model, which can be applied when the population is much larger than the fraction of infected subjects.

Results

We proved that the fraction of undetected infectives, compared to the total number of infected subjects, is given by 1-1R₀, wh

SUBMITTER: Melis M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7837159 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature