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COVID-19 in Cuba: The peak is ahead, what do mathematical models say and how to interpret them?

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Attention: The peak could be next week

The specialists explained that —according to estimates of the average survival time, following the international behavior of more than 180 countries— the peak should be reached 77 days of evolution of the disease, which would occur by the end of May. However, China and South Korea managed to get closer to the date with the highest incidence.

Three scenarios of the epidemic in Cuba that show the active cases of the disease. Enlarged image shows projection of the peak for Cuba.

What has been happening in Cuba in the most recent days, leaves as a balance an advance of the peak date. According to the dean of the Faculty of Mathematics of the University of Havana “the forecast of the blue curve now indicates that next week, approximately, we would be at the peak, anticipating the international average. This is a reserved prognosis that will depend on the evolution of the disease in the coming days, "said Guinovart.

Chains of infection and some elements of "speed"

 

The Doctor of Science notes that the basic reproductive number is calculated at the beginning of the epidemic. Photo: Abel Padrón Padilla / Cubadebate

If we want to understand the “speed” with which COVID-19 spreads and what happens in scenarios where local transmission events are decreed, it is necessary to know two terms: basic reproductive number and the effective reproductive number.

Imagine that when it was all over we were able to determine who infected whom. You could be the first carrier of the virus and have shaken hands or coughed in front of 3 other people who were infected in turn. Then, each of them would have spread to 3 others (1 + 3 + 9 are already going) who, due to life's ups and downs, would have spread the infection to 3 others (it is easy to count: 1 + 3 + 9 + 27).

Mathematically, this is known as geometric progression or, as it is repeated in the media these days, exponential growth. In epidemiology, that number 3 is known as the basic reproductive rate (or factor), R0, and represents the average number of infections spread by each person infected.

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