Mathematical modeling and impact analysis of the use of COVID Alert SA app

Abstract

<abstract> <p>The human life-threatening novel Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Corona-virus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has lasted for over a year escalating and posing simultaneous anxiety day-by-day globally since its first report in the late December 2019. The scientific arena has been kept animated via continuous investigations in an effort to understand the spread dynamics and the impact of various mitigation measures to keep this pandemic diminished. Despite a lot of research works having been accomplished this far, the pandemic is still deep-rooted in many regions worldwide signaling for more scientific investigations. This study joins the field by developing a modified SEIR (Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Removed) compartmental deterministic model whose key distinct feature is the incorporation of the COVID Alert SA app use by the general public in prolific intention to control the spread of the epidemic. Validation of the model is performed by fitting the model to the Republic of South Africa's COVID-19 cases reported data using the Maximum Likelihood Estimation algorithm implemented in fitR package. The model's sensitivity analysis and simulations stipulate that gradual to complete use of the app would be perfect in contact tracing and substantially reduce the plateau number of COVID-19 infections. This would consequentially contribute remarkably to the eradication of the SARS-CoV-2 over time. Proportional amalgamation of the app use and test for COVID-19 on individuals not using the app would also reduce the peak number of infections apart from the 50 – 50% ratio which spikes the plateau number beyond any other proportion. The study establishes that at least 30% implementation of the app use with gradual increase in tests conducted for individuals not using the app would suffice to stabilize the disease free equilibrium resulting to gradual eradication of the pandemic.</p> </abstract>

South Africa’s Battle Against COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Individuals who tested positive for the virus were also put in quarantine, and medical care was also given. Moreover, contact tracing via the COVID Alert SA app was also influential in detecting the close contacts of infected individuals, and the connections were notified to get themselves tested for the virus at nearby testing facilities [35] . A national vaccination strategy was also quickly planned to achieve herd immunity within South Africa as soon as possible.…”

“…Inter-provincial travel was now permitted, and national borders were only partially open to those who complied with the specified protocols [34] . The COVID Alert SA app was also launched in August to trace individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 [35] . The restrictions were further lowered to level one when the COVID-19 situation in South Africa became more stabilized [36,37] .…”

To Use Face Masks or Not After COVID-19 Vaccination? An Impact Analysis Using Mathematical Modeling

“…Proof Suppose that the solution of the model (Equations 2-8) is not positive for all t ≥ 0. Then there exist a first time t * > 0 such that ε a Rate of death by the asymptomatic individuals 0.018 [1] µ Rate of natural death 0.0001 [48] contradiction from Equation (2) we have dS(t * ) dt = Ŵ > 0 which implies that S(t) > 0 for all t ≥ 0. Arguing similarly, it can be verified that S mv (t) > 0, S m (t) > 0, E(t) > 0, I s (t) > 0, I a (t) > 0 and R(t) > 0 for all t ≥ 0.…”

“…At the instant when no individual is infected in the population of concern, then this situation is referred to as infection-free equilibrium [48,51]. We find that the proposed model has a unique infection-free equilibrium denoted and defined as…”

Forecasting of Covid-19 deaths in South Africa using the autoregressive integrated moving average time series model

“…The Covid-19 pandemic whose originator pathogen is the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) [1,2,3,4,6] has been devastating globally since its first report at Wuhan, Hubei province of China in the late December 2019 [4,7]. The disease spreads quickly and easily majorly via respiratory droplets produced during coughing, sneezing, talking and/or breathing of a Covid-19 infected individual(s) [7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14]. This feature of the disease made it to spread in most regions of the world within a very short period of time.…”