Analysis of Imposition and Periodic Relaxation of Lockdown on the Spread of COVID-19 in India through Networked SEIR Model

Abstract

In this paper, an investigation is carried out to analyse how periodic lockdown and unlocking have helped India to combat the first wave of COVID-19. To that end, a networked SEIR model is considered that captures the spreading dynamics of the disease in sixteen of the worst affected states of India. In this regard, a distance based contact matrix is constructed to reflect the connectivity between states. Various rate parameters of the model are estimated as well as the basic reproduction number <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$(\mathscr{R}_{0})$</tex> of each of the sixteen states for each phase of lockdown is found out. Finally, a comparison is drawn between the simulated results of cumulative infected caseload using the estimated parameters and that with the real COVID-19 data of India till December 31, 2020, which establishes the effectiveness of the method.