A critical operations management problem in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is cognizance of (a) the number of all carriers at large (CaL) conveying the SARS-CoV-2, including asymptomatic ones and (b) the infection rate (IR). Both are random and unobservable, affecting the spread of the disease, patient arrivals to health care units (HCUs) and the number of deaths. A novel, inventory perspective of COVID-19 is proposed, with random inflow, random losses and retrials (recurrent cases) and delayed/distributed exit, with randomly varying fractions of the exit distribution. A minimal construal, it enables representation of COVID-19 evolution with close fit of national incidence profiles, including single and multiple pattern outbreaks, oscillatory, periodic or non-periodic evolution, followed by retraction, leveling off, or strong resurgence. Furthermore, based on asymptotic laws, the minimum number of variables that must be monitored for identifying CaL and IR is determined and a real-time identification method is presented. The method is data-driven, utilizing the entry rate to HCUs and scaled, or dimensionless variables, including the mean residence time of symptomatic carriers in CaL and the mean residence time in CaL of patients entering HCUs. As manifested by several robust case studies of national COVID-19 incidence profiles, it provides efficient identification in real-time under unbiased monitoring error, without relying on any model. The propagation factor, a stochastic process, is reconstructed from the identified trajectories of CaL and IR, enabling evaluation of control measures. The results are useful towards the design of policies restricting COVID-19 and encumbrance to HCUs and mitigating economic contraction.
