A Henon map for the transmission dynamics of COVID-19: The role of asymptomatic transmitters and delayed symptoms

TL;DR

This paper models the initial phase of COVID-19 transmission using a Henon map, incorporating asymptomatic carriers and delayed symptom onset to better understand early outbreak dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel Henon map-based model capturing asymptomatic transmission and latency effects during the early phase of COVID-19.

Findings

The model effectively describes the growth and decline of cases in Phase-1.

It highlights the impact of asymptomatic carriers on transmission dynamics.

The approach provides insights into early outbreak behavior and potential control points.

Abstract

We consider the transmission dynamics of COVID-19 which is characterized by two distinct features. One is the existence of asymptomatic carriers which is a hidden variable in the problem. The other is the issue of latency which means that among the symptomatic carriers there could be a fraction whose symptoms develop after a couple of days. Our modelling is restricted to what we call the Phase -1 of the disease. During this phase the disease sets in and the number of infected people starts growing fast ( the number of new cases per day keeps growing on an average ) and then it slows down ( the number of new cases per day starts decreasing ) with the number of new cases decreasing to about one tenth of its peak value or even smaller). We define Phase-1 to be over when the daily cases start rising once again. We write down a Henon-like map to take various effects into account for this first phase.