Analysing the Propagation of the Coronavirus Epidemic: The Case of Wuhan in Hubei Province, China

Abstract

The ongoing coronavirus epidemic, COVID-19, has spread across the world in matter of weeks, and has led to a global pandemic. The current study examines the propagation of COVID-19 in Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak, and Hubei Province in China, across which the spread was initially the fastest. The logistic model were used to analyse the propagation of the epidemic.

The results of the study suggest that the logistic model is an adequate model for explaining the propagation of the epidemic. The model gives projections for the limiting cumulative number of cases, cured/discharged, and deaths. A more integrated approach is proposed for further studies, which would consider the number cured and number of deaths as subprocesses of the number of infected cases at any point of time, as a coupled system of differential equations.

Keywords: COVID-19 epidemic, propagation, logistic model

JEL Classification: C40