Analysis of the outbreak of COVID-19 in Japan by SIQR model

The SIQR model is exploited to analyze the outbreak of COVID-19 in Japan where the number of the daily confirmed new cases is explicitly treated as an observable. It is assumed that the society consists of four compartments; susceptible individuals (S), infected individuals at large (I), quarantined patients (Q) and recovered individuals (R), and the time evolution of the pandemic is described by a set of ordinary differential equations. It is shown that the quarantine rate can be determined from the time dependence of the daily confirmed new cases, from which the number of infected individuals can be estimated. The infection rate and quarantine rate are determined for the period from mid-February to mid-April in Japan and transmission characteristics of the initial stages of the outbreak in Japan are analyzed in connection with the policies employed by the government. The effectiveness of different measures is discussed for controlling the outbreak and it is shown that identifying patients through PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) testing and isolating them in a quarantine is more effective than lockdown measures aimed at inhibiting social interactions of the general population. An effective reproduction number for infected individuals at large is introduced which is appropriate to epidemics controlled by quarantine measures.