Modelling the Emerging COVID-19 Epidemic and Estimating Intervention Effectiveness - Taiwan, China, 2021

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic recently affected Taiwan, China. This study aimed to calculate the transmissibility of COVID-19 to predict trends and evaluate the effects of interventions.

The data of reported COVID-19 cases was collected from April 20 to May 26, 2021, which included daily reported data (Scenario I) and reported data after adjustment (Scenario II). A susceptible-exposed-symptomatic-asymptomatic-recovered model was developed to fit the data. The effective reproductive number (R ) was used to estimate the transmissibility of COVID-19.

A total of 4,854 cases were collected for the modelling. In Scenario I, the intervention has already taken some effects from May 17 to May 26 (the R reduced to 2.1). When the R was set as 0.1, the epidemic was projected to end on July 4, and a total of 1,997 cases and 855 asymptomatic individuals would have been reported. In Scenario II, the interventions were projected as having been effective from May 24 to May 26 (the R reduced to 0.4). When the R was set as 0.1, the epidemic was projected to end on July 1, and a total of 1,482 cases and 635 asymptomatic individuals would have been reported.

The epidemic of COVID-19 was projected to end after at least one month, even if the most effective interventions were applied in Taiwan, China. Although there were some positive effects of intervention in Taiwan, China.