Modeling county level COVID-19 transmission in the greater St. Louis area: challenges of uncertainty and identifiability when fitting mechanistic models to time-varying processes (Q6566655)

The paper models county level COVID-19 transmission in the greater St. Louis area looking into challenges of uncertainty and identifiability when fitting mechanistic models to time-varying processes. The paper considers the extended SEIR epidemic spreading model with additional asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic and symptomatic individuals along with the susceptible and exposed individuals. The transmission parameter is assumed to be time-varying and piecewise constant. The model features classes of quarantined, hospitalized, and recovered individuals. It fits the model to both synthetic and read data. The properties of the estimation process are examined in a controlled environment. Some potential implications and impact on the inferences are discussed.