A team of researchers from the University of Granada, the University of Lyon (France), and the University of the Western Cape (South Africa) have used a simple epidemiological model to predict that the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain will last until March, with about 55,000 fatalities
A team of researchers from the University of Granada (UGR), the University of Lyon (France), and the University of the Western Cape (South Africa) have used a simple epidemiological model to predict that the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain will last until March 2021, with about 55,000 fatalities.
“In the first wave, an exponential behaviour was observed, with the daily fatality rate increasing very rapidly; in the second wave, the increase is not exponential, it is much less rapid, almost linear, which indicates that it will be a longer wave that will last until March”, explains José Enrique Amaro, Professor at the Department of Atomic, Molecular and Nuclear Physics of the UGR.
His calculations project 50,000 deaths by January 10, setting the peak of the death curve in March, with about 55,000 victims—forecasts that could change depending on any new measures introduced.
“The predictions must be approached with caution because it is impossible to achieve 100% accuracy months in advance”, warns the expert, who updates the data from the second wave in Spain and analyses them with different models.
At the beginning of the pandemic in Spain, Professor Amaro developed a method to analyse the evolution of the coronavirus, using a formula that simplified the SIR model—used by many scientists with proven accuracy—and which he later extended to calculate the daily death rate.
In a joint collaboration with the UGR, Professor Amaro brought together researchers from the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town and the University of Lyon to examine various epidemiological models used to try to anticipate the effect of the pandemic.
The team modified the SIR statistical model to ascertain how the death rate is likely to evolve, without the need to know the number of infected people—a figure that is much less reliable than the number of deaths.
The results of the research, published in the prestigious journal Applied Mathematical Modeling, indicate that, to determine how the final phase of the pandemic will play out, it is necessary to factor-in the temporal variations in the indices of propagation and interaction attributed to measures such as quarantines, social distancing, or facemasks.
This simplified model was used to study the daily death curve in the most badly-affected European countries during the first wave of the pandemic and has shown that the same trends are repeated, which suggests a universal behaviour of the coronavirus.
Media enquiries:
José Enrique Amaro Soriano
Department of Atomic, Molecular and Nuclear Physics, University of Granada
Tel.: +34 958 240028
Email: amaro@ugr.es
