A mathematical model for simulating the phase-based transmissibility of a novel coronavirus

As reported by the World Health Organization, a novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) was identified as the causative virus of Wuhan pneumonia of unknown etiology by Chinese authorities on 7 January, 2020. The virus was named as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) by International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses on 11 February, 2020. This study aimed to develop a mathematical model for calculating the transmissibility of the virus.

In this study, we developed a Bats-Hosts-Reservoir-People transmission network model for simulating the potential transmission from the infection source (probably be bats) to the human infection. Since the Bats-Hosts-Reservoir network was hard to explore clearly and public concerns were focusing on the transmission from Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market (reservoir) to people, we simplified the model as Reservoir-People (RP) transmission network model. The next generation matrix approach was adopted to calculate the basic reproduction number (R₀) from the RP model to assess the transmissibility of the SARS-CoV-2.

The value of R₀ was estimated of 2.30 from reservoir to person and 3.58 from person to person which means that the expected number of secondary infections that result from introducing a single infected individual into an otherwise susceptible population was 3.58.

Our model showed that the transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 was higher than the Middle East respiratory syndrome in the Middle East countries, similar to severe acute respiratory syndrome, but lower than MERS in the Republic of Korea.