Predicting The Evolution Of COVID-19 In Portugal Using An Adapted Sir Model Previously Used In South Korea For The Mers Outbreak

The covid-19 has spread very quickly worldwide, leading the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a state of pandemic. Moreover, the WHO has announced that the European continent is now the main centre of the pandemic. One of the questions many governments are asking is how the spread is going to evolve in time. In this study, an adapted SIR model previously used in South Korea to model the MERS outbreak was applied to estimate the evolution of the curve of active cases in the case of the Portuguese situation. As some of the parameters were unknown, and the data for Portugal is still scarce, given that the outbreak started later (first case on the 2nd of March) I used Italian data (first reported case in Italy on the 31st of January) to predict them. I then construct five different scenarios for the evolution of covid-19 in Portugal, considering both the effectiveness of the mitigation measurements implemented by the government, and the self-protective measures taken by the population, as explained in the South Korean model. In the out of control scenario, the number of active cases could reach as much as 40,000 people by the beginning of April. In the best-case-scenario considered, the active cases could reach circa 7,000 people. The actual figure probably lies between the interval (7,000-13,000) and the peak will be reached between 9th and the 20th of April 2020. Without control and self-protective measures, this model predicts that the figures of active cases of SARS-covid-2 would reach a staggering 40,000 people It shows the importance of control and self-protecting measure to bring down the number of affected people by following the recommendations of the WHO and health authorities. With the appropriate measures, this number can be brought down to 7,000-13,000 people