Abstract
The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 was first identified in China in December 2019. In just over five months, the virus affected over 4 million people and caused about 300,000 deaths. This study aimed to model new COVID-19 cases in Italian regions using a new curve. A new empirical curve is proposed to model the number of new cases of COVID-19. It resembles a known exponential growth curve, which has a straight line as an exponent, but in the growth curve proposed, the exponent is a logistic curve multiplied for a straight line. This curve shows an initial phase, the expected exponential growth, then rises to the maximum value and finally reaches zero. We characterized the epidemic growth patterns for the entire Italian nation and each of the 20 Italian regions. The estimated growth curve has been used to calculate the expected time of the beginning, the time related to peak, and the end of the epidemics. Our analysis explores the development of the outbreaks in Italy and the impact of the containment measures. Data obtained are useful to forecast future scenarios and the possible end of the epidemic.
Highlights
The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, responsible of COVID-19 epidemic, was first identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 among a cluster of patients that presented with an unidentified form of viral pneumonia (Peeri et al 2020); it is reported to cause a range of symptoms including fever, cough, and shortness of breath (Huang et al 2020)
The exponential growth curve is N(t) = e!(#$%), where N(t) is the number of new COVID-19 infected per day, t is the number of days since the start of registration of the infected (Fig. 1a)
The graph has the secondary axis in y with maximum value = 1⁄4 of the value of the primary axis, in order to be able to compare from a visual point of view the relationship between the number of new deaths and the number of new cases per day
Summary
The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, responsible of COVID-19 epidemic, was first identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 among a cluster of patients that presented with an unidentified form of viral pneumonia (Peeri et al 2020); it is reported to cause a range of symptoms including fever, cough, and shortness of breath (Huang et al 2020). In Italy, the first official cases appeared on February 21st in the Lombardia region; eleven municipalities in northern Italy were identified as the centres of the two main Italian clusters and placed under quarantine. On March 8th, the quarantine was expanded to all of the Lombardia region and 14 other northern provinces, and on the following day to all of Italy, placing more than 60 million people in a de-facto quarantine mode. On May 11th, the total number of cases in Italy were 219.070, with 30.560 deaths; the total of tests performed was over 2 and half million
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