Abstract
To model the trajectory of the pandemic in Kuwait from February 24, 2020 to February 28, 2021, we used two modeling procedures: Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) with structural breaks and Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS), and then mapped the key breakpoints of the models to the set of government-enforced interventions. The MARS model, as opposed to the ARIMA model, provides a more precise interpretation of the intervention's effects. It demonstrates that partial and total lockdown interventions were highly effective in reducing the number of confirmed cases. When some interventions, such as enforcing regional curfews, closing workplaces, and imposing travel restrictions, were combined, their impact became significant. MARS method is recommended to be applied when exploring the impact of interventions on the spread of a disease. It does not require any prior assumptions about the statistical distribution of data, does not affect data collinearity, has simple and transparent functions, and allows for a more accurate analysis of intervention results.
Highlights
After the first novel coronavirus infection case was detected in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 (Zhu et al, 2020), the virus widely and rapidly spread across the world, leading the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020 (Cucinotta & Vanelli, 2020)
The effect of a nonpharmaceutical intervention is considered in a novel application of intervention analysis to model the number of infected COVID-19 cases in Kuwait between February 24, 2020, and February 28, 2021
The first method was to use intervention analysis with Arima modeling by fitting a structural break variable to the time series that reflected the major change points
Summary
After the first novel coronavirus infection case was detected in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 (Zhu et al, 2020), the virus widely and rapidly spread across the world, leading the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020 (Cucinotta & Vanelli, 2020). Several research studies used various statistical techniques to explore the impact of government precautionary measures on the spread of COVID-19 in different countries, such as China (Al-Rousan & Al-Najjar, 2020), the UK (Ferguson et al, 2020), the US (Ferguson et al, 2020), Taiwan (Hsieh et al, 2020), Bahrain (Al Dallal et al, 2021), and Kuwait (Almeshal et al, 2020) These studies considered the pandemic at its early stage when its trajectory had a single wave. The findings showed that some of the precautionary measures, such as complete lockdowns, were significantly effective in reducing the number of confirmed cases (referred to as “Cases” in the rest of this paper), containing the disease’s spread.
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