Analysis of COVID-19 epidemic with intervention impacts by a fractional operator

Abstract

This study introduces an innovative fractional methodology for analyzing the dynamics of COVID-19 outbreak, examining the impact of intervention strategies like lockdown, quarantine, and isolation on disease transmission. The analysis incorporates the Caputo fractional derivative to grasp long-term memory effects and non-local behavior in the advancement of the infection. Emphasis is placed on assessing the boundedness and non-negativity of the solutions. Additionally, the Lipschitz and Banach contraction theorem are utilized to validate the existence and uniqueness of the solution. We determine the basic reproduction number associated with the model utilizing the next generation matrix technique. Subsequently, by employing the normalized sensitivity index, we perform a sensitivity analysis of the basic reproduction number to effectively identify the controlling parameters of the model. To validate our theoretical findings, numerical simulations are conducted for various fractional order values, utilizing a two-step Lagrange interpolation technique. Furthermore, the numerical algorithms of the model are represented graphically to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology and to analyze the effect of arbitrary order derivatives on disease dynamics.