Evaluating the current epidemiological status of Italy: Insights from a stochastic epidemic model

Abstract

The pandemic dark clouds of Covid-19 have cast over almost all the countries and the world is eagerly waiting for the shower of relief so that life could get back to normalcy. Different deterministic epidemic models have been considered for predicting the future course of the Covid-19 epidemic in different countries. These models ignore the uncertainty prevailing in the estimation of model parameters, though variation in measuring different epidemiological parameters is unavoidable for a growing epidemic of unknown pathogenesis like Covid-19. Unlike other deterministic studies for epidemiological predictions of Covid-19, we used here a stochastic epidemic model to determine the disease extinction criterion. We also fitted the epidemic data of Italy and further estimated the epidemic burden of this country for the next two months. The second wave of this dreaded infection has started in Italy and may take a longer time in comparison to the first wave to bring it under control. The cumulative numbers of confirmed and death cases till 15 December 2020 are estimated as 9,45,783 and 37,873, respectively, with a 4 \% case fatality rate.