An SIHR epidemic model of the COVID-19 with general population-size dependent contact rate

Abstract

Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) which was firstly reported in Wuhan city last December, and then spread throughout the country rapidly. In this paper, we propose an SIHR model that predicts the course of the epidemic to help plan an effective control strategy. The values of parameters in the model are estimated on the basis of fitting to the reported data of COVID-19 from February 5 to March 17, 2020, in Hubei province. The results showed that (i) the peak of total confirmed cases will arrive around late February of 2020, (ii) the cumulative number of confirmed cases to be around 68,000 cases, (iii) the disease will end in mid-May of 2020. All these findings are consistent with the actual situation of Hubei province. Based on the empirical results, it is recommended to strengthen community closures and increase medical resources, which is the key to controlling the spread of COVID-19 in Hubei province.