Modified susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered model for assessing the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic in Seoul.
Seungpil Jung, Jong-Hoon Kim, Seung-Sik Hwang, Junyoung Choi, Woojoo Lee
Author Information
Seungpil Jung: Department of Public Health Sciences, Graduate School of Public Health, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, 08826, Republic of Korea.
Jong-Hoon Kim: International Vaccine Institute, SNU Research Park, 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, 151-742, Republic of Korea.
Seung-Sik Hwang: Department of Public Health Sciences, Graduate School of Public Health, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, 08826, Republic of Korea.
Junyoung Choi: Center for Data Science, Seoul Institute of Technology, 37 Maebongsan-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul, 03909, Republic of Korea.
Woojoo Lee: Department of Public Health Sciences, Graduate School of Public Health, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, 08826, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: lwj221@gmail.com.
Susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered (SEIR) models were applied to assess the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and to study the dynamic behavior of the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, SEIR models have evolved to address the change of human mobility by some NPIs for predicting the new confirmed cases. However, the models have serious limitations when applied to Seoul. Seoul has two representative quarantine policies, i.e. social distancing and the ban on gatherings. Effects of the two policies need to be reflected in different functional forms in the model because changes in human mobility do not fully reflect the ban on gatherings. Thus we propose a modified SEIR model to assess the effectiveness of social distancing, ban on gatherings and vaccination strategies. The application of the modified SEIR model was illustrated by comparing the model output with real data.
