A Transmission Model of COVID-19 with Heterogeneous Force of Infectiousness and Intervention Analysis

The epidemic of COVID-19 has been effectively controlled in China, which provides an empirical basis for intervention analysis. An extended SIR transmission model with heterogeneous force of infectiousness is presented including three fractals sub-models of Wuhan, Hubei and China. The model is built upon the data from January 20 to March 23, 2020. The Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) Gibbs sampling and machine learning of Gaussian process regression are applied to solve the parameters estimation and the sensitivity analysis is used in various scenarios. The model has a breakthrough in parameter setting and accuracy optimization. It is found that contact reduction is the most effective core lever to control the epidemic, with 3.5 times or more sensitivity as much as other levers. The asymmetric marginal effect in strong and weak scenarios proves that Chinese controlling strategy is close to the Pareto Optimality. The intervention effectiveness of COVID-19 in China is evaluated by simulation analysis. The result provides valuable reference for China and other countries to judge the epidemic risk, control the intervention pace, and formulate prevention strategies in the future.