Exploring susceptible-infectious-recovered (SIR) model for COVID-19 investigation (Q6158919)

In this book, the authors study various aspects of the epidemic spread of COVID-19 and compare it with some other disease models from the past. Although the course of the pandemic made it clear that to accurately capture the intricate dynamics of the epidemic spread, one needs to apply more complicated models which take into account many individual characteristics of the disease, and researchers working on epidemic modelling to support decision makers worldwide applied far more complex models, in some cases even the simplest SIR model can provide surprisingly good fits to real world data. The main idea of the book is to understand how the model corresponds to real world data. The book starts with a general introduction of the disease. Then a short review on epidemic models and, in particular, on the SIR model is provided, including the elementary properties of the simple SIR model. The basic growth and spread pattern is studied, then the authors show how the parameters of the SIR model fit to the growth model and how changes in parameter values may affect the spread. Finally, some insights are given into the second wave of the epidemic.