Superposition of waves for modeling COVID-19 epidemic in the world and in the countries with the maximum number of infected people in the first half of 2020

TL;DR

This paper models the global and country-specific COVID-19 epidemic spread in early 2020 using wave superposition, revealing distinct wave patterns and capacities linked to restrictive measures and population mixing.

Contribution

It introduces a mathematical model based on discrete equations to analyze COVID-19 wave superposition across countries, highlighting the number of waves and their characteristics.

Findings

Global COVID-19 spread fits into 5 waves.

Countries with strict measures show single-wave patterns.

Countries with high population mixing exhibit wave superpositions.

Abstract

On the base of logic discrete equations system mathematical modeling of COVID-19 epidemic spread was carried out in the world and in the countries with the largest number of infected people such as the USA, Brasil, Russia and India in the first half of 2020. It was shown that for the countries with strong restrictive measures the spread of COVID-19 fit on a single wave with small capacity as for a number of countries with violation of restrictive measures the spread of the epidemic fit on a waves superposition. For countries with large population mixing, the spread of the epidemic today also fits into a single wave, but with a huge capacity value (for Brazil - 80 million people, for India - 40 million people). We estimated that the epidemic spread in the world today fits into 5 waves. The first two waves are caused by the epidemic spread in China (the first - in Wuhan), the third - by the epidemic spread in European countries, the fourth mainly by the epidemic spread in Russia and the USA, the fifth wave is mainly caused by the epidemic spread in Latin America and South Asia. It was the fifth wave that led to the spread of the coronavirus epidemic COVID-19 entering a new phase, with an increase in the number of infected more than 100 thousand inhabitants. For all the studied countries and the world, for each of the superposition waves, the wave capacities and growth indicators were calculated. The local peaks of the waves and their ending times are determined. It was the fifth wave that led to the fact that COVID-19 spread is entering a new phase, with the increase in the number of infected people being more than 100 thousand inhabitants. For all the countries being examined and for the whole world, for each of the superposition waves we calculated the waves capacities and index of infected people growth.