A reductive analysis of a compartmental model for COVID-19: data assimilation and forecasting for the United Kingdom

We introduce a deterministic model that partitions the total population into the susceptible, infected, quarantined, and those traced after exposure, the recovered and the deceased. We hypothesize ‘accessible population for transmission of the disease’ to be a small fraction of the total population, for instance when interventions are in force. This hypothesis, together with the structure of the set of coupled nonlinear ordinary differential equations for the populations, allows us to decouple the equations into just two equations. This further reduces to a logistic type of equation for the total infected population. The equation can be solved analytically and therefore allows for a clear interpretation of the growth and inhibiting factors in terms of the parameters in the full model. The validity of the ‘accessible population’ hypothesis and the efficacy of the reduced logistic model is demonstrated by the ease of fitting the United Kingdom data for the cumulative infected and daily new infected cases. The model can also be used to forecast further progression of the disease. In an effort to find optimized parameter values compatible with the United Kingdom coronavirus data, we first determine the relative importance of the various transition rates participating in the original model. Using this we show that the original model equations provide a very good fit with the United Kingdom data for the cumulative number of infections and the daily new cases. The fact that the model calculated daily new cases exhibits a turning point, suggests the beginning of a slow-down in the spread of infections. However, since the rate of slowing down beyond the turning point is small, the cumulative number of infections is likely to saturate to about 3.52 × 10⁵ around late July, provided the lock-down conditions continue to prevail. Noting that the fit obtained from the reduced logistic equation is comparable to that with the full model equations, the underlying causes for the limited forecasting ability of the reduced logistic equation are elucidated. The model and the procedure adopted here are expected to be useful in fitting the data for other countries and in forecasting the progression of the disease.