Generalized SIR (GSIR) epidemic model: An improved framework for the predictive monitoring of COVID-19 pandemic

Social and economic variables explain COVID-19 diffusion in European regions

At the beginning of 2020, Italy was the country with the highest number of COVID-19 cases, not only in Europe, but also in the rest of the world, and Lombardy was the most heavily hit region of Italy. The objective of this research is to understand which variables have determined the prevalence of cases in Lombardy and in other highly-affected European regions. We consider the first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, using a set of 22 variables related to economy, population, healthcare and education. Regions with a high prevalence of cases are extracted by means of binary classifiers, then the most relevant variables for the classification are determined, and the robustness of the analysis is assessed. Our results show that the most meaningful features to identify high-prevalence regions include high number of hours spent in work environments, high life expectancy, and low number of people leaving from education and neither employed nor educated or trained.

Clinical Features Predicting COVID-19 Severity Risk at the Time of Hospitalization

The global spread of COVID-19 has led to significant mortality and morbidity worldwide. Early identification of COVID-19 patients who are at high risk of developing severe disease can help in improved patient management, care, and treatment, as well as in the effective allocation of hospital resources. The severity prediction at the time of hospitalization can be extremely helpful in deciding the treatment of COVID-19 patients. To this end, this study presents an interpretable artificial intelligence (AI) model, named COVID-19 severity predictor (CoSP) that predicts COVID-19 severity using the clinical features at the time of hospital admission. We utilized a dataset comprising 64 demographic and laboratory features of 7,416 confirmed COVID-19 patients that were collected at the time of hospital admission. The proposed hierarchical CoSP model performs four-class COVID severity risk prediction into asymptomatic, mild, moderate, and severe categories. CoSP yielded better performance with good interpretability, as observed via Shapley analysis on COVID severity prediction compared to the other popular ML methods, with an area under the received operating characteristic curve (AUC-ROC) of 0.95, an area under the precision-recall curve (AUPRC) of 0.91, and a weighted F1-score of 0.83. Out of 64 initial features, 19 features were inferred as predictive of the severity of COVID-19 disease by the CoSP model. Therefore, an AI model predicting COVID-19 severity may be helpful for early intervention, optimizing resource allocation, and guiding personalized treatments, potentially enabling healthcare professionals to save lives and allocate resources effectively in the fight against the pandemic.

Epidemiological characteristics and dynamic transmissions of COVID-19 pandemics in Chinese mainland: A trajectory clustering perspective analysis

BACKGROUND

The corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has spread to more than 210 countries and regions around the world, with different characteristics recorded depending on the location. A systematic summarization of COVID-19 outbreaks that occurred during the "dynamic zero-COVID" policy period in Chinese mainland had not been previously conducted. In-depth mining of the big data from the past two years of the COVID-19 pandemics must be performed to clarify their epidemiological characteristics and dynamic transmissions.

METHODS

Trajectory clustering was used to group epidemic and time-varying reproduction number (Rt) curves of mass outbreaks into different models and reveal the epidemiological characteristics and dynamic transmissions of COVID-19. For the selected single-peak epidemic curves, we constructed a peak-point judgment model based on the dynamic slope and adopted a single-peak fitting model to identify the key time points and peak parameters. Finally, we developed an extreme gradient boosting-based prediction model for peak infection cases based on the total number of infections on the first 3, 5, and 7 days of the initial average incubation period.

RESULTS

(1) A total of 7 52298 cases, including 587 outbreaks in 251 cities in Chinese mainland between June 11, 2020, and June 29, 2022, were collected, and the first wave of COVID-19 outbreaks was excluded. Excluding the Shanghai outbreak in 2022, the 586 remaining outbreaks resulted in 1 25425 infections, with an infection rate of 4.21 per 1 00000 individuals. The number of outbreaks varied based on location, season, and temperature. (2) Trajectory clustering analysis showed that 77 epidemic curves were divided into four patterns, which were dominated by two single-peak clustering patterns (63.3%). A total of 77 Rt curves were grouped into seven patterns, with the leading patterns including four downward dynamic transmission patterns (74.03%). These curves revealed that the interval from peak to the point where the Rt value dropped below 1 was approximately 5 days. (3) The peak-point judgment model achieved a better result in the area under the curve (0.96, 95% confidence interval = 0.90-1.00). The single-peak fitting results on the epidemic curves indicated that the interval from the slow-growth point to the sharp-decline point was approximately 4-6 days in more than 50% of mass outbreaks. (4) The peak-infection-case prediction model exhibited the superior clustering results of epidemic and Rt curves compared with the findings without grouping.

CONCLUSION

Overall, our findings suggest the variation in the infection rates during the "dynamic zero-COVID" policy period based on the geographic division, level of economic development, seasonal division, and temperature. Trajectory clustering can be a useful tool for discovering epidemiological characteristics and dynamic transmissions, judging peak points, and predicting peak infection cases using different patterns.

Analytical tool for COVID-19 using an SIR model equivalent to the chain reaction equation of infection

Insights from data analysis of existing cases are important to prevent future outbreaks of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Although mathematical models are expected to be useful for this purpose, the adequacy of reproducibility of these models is difficult to confirm because they are based on hypotheses. For example, using the time variation of the parameter of the basic reproduction number for the time variation of complex data on the number of infected persons is a change of expression and does not capture the substance of the problem. We previously showed that the simplest Susceptible, Infected, Recovered (SIR) model alone, without any complex models, exhibits acceptable reproducibility. By clarifying the rationale for this reproducibility, quantifiable characteristics regarding the infection spread, such as the duration of the pandemic and the mechanism of occurrence of several large waves, can be uncovered and this can contribute to countermeasures. Here, we show this method equals the chain reaction equation for infection, allowing the parameters (infection rate, population) of the mathematical models to be extracted from the data. Once a model that reproduces the actual situation is determined, much of the information becomes apparent. As an example, we present three characteristics of the spread of infection effective in controlling COVID-19: the time of onset of infection, the rapidity of the spread, and the time to acquisition of herd immunity. Acquiring this information is likely to increase the predictive accuracy of the model.

Production-sharing of critical resources with dynamic demand under pandemic situation: The COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 virus's high transmissibility has resulted in the virus's rapid spread throughout the world, which has brought several repercussions, ranging from a lack of sanitary and medical products to the collapse of medical systems. Hence, governments attempt to re-plan the production of medical products and reallocate limited health resources to combat the pandemic. This paper addresses a multi-period production-inventory-sharing problem (PISP) to overcome such a circumstance, considering two consumable and reusable products. We introduce a new formulation to decide on production, inventory, delivery, and sharing quantities. The sharing will depend on net supply balance, allowable demand overload, unmet demand, and the reuse cycle of reusable products. Undeniably, the dynamic demand for products during pandemic situations must be reflected effectively in addressing the multi-period PISP. A bespoke compartmental susceptible-exposed-infectious-hospitalized-recovered-susceptible (SEIHRS) epidemiological model with a control policy is proposed, which also accounts for the influence of people's behavioral response as a result of the knowledge of adequate precautions. An accelerated Benders decomposition-based algorithm with tailored valid inequalities is offered to solve the model. Finally, we consider a realistic case study - the COVID-19 pandemic in France - to examine the computational proficiency of the decomposition method. The computational results reveal that the proposed decomposition method coupled with effective valid inequalities can solve large-sized test problems in a reasonable computational time and 9.88 times faster than the commercial Gurobi solver. Moreover, the sharing mechanism reduces the total cost of the system and the unmet demand on the average up to 32.98% and 20.96%, respectively.

Multi-source dynamic ensemble prediction of infectious disease and application in COVID-19 case

BACKGROUND

The development of an epidemic always exhibits multiwave oscillation owing to various anthropogenic sources of transmission. Particularly in populated areas, the large-scaled human mobility led to the transmission of the virus faster and more complex. The accurate prediction of the spread of infectious diseases remains a problem. To solve this problem, we propose a new method called the multi-source dynamic ensemble prediction (MDEP) method that incorporates a modified susceptible-exposed-infected-removed (SEIR) model to improve the accuracy of the prediction result.

METHODS

The modified SEIR model is based on the compartment model, which is suitable for local-scale and confined spaces, where human mobility on a large scale is not considered. Moreover, compartmental models cannot be used to predict multiwave epidemics. The proposed MDEP method can remedy defects in the compartment model. In this study, multi-source prediction was made on the development of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and dynamically assembled to obtain the final integrated result. We used the real epidemic data of COVID-19 in three cities in China: Beijing, Lanzhou, and Beihai. Epidemiological data were collected from 17 April, 2022 to 12 August, 2022.

RESULTS

Compared to the one-wave modified SEIR model, the MDEP method can depict the multiwave development of COVID-19. The MDEP method was applied to predict the number of cumulative cases of recent COVID-19 outbreaks in the aforementioned cities in China. The average accuracy rates in Beijing, Lanzhou, and Beihai were 89.15%, 91.74%, and 94.97%, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

The MDEP method improved the prediction accuracy of COVID-19. With further application to other infectious diseases, the MDEP method will provide accurate predictions of infectious diseases and aid governments make appropriate directives.

STG-Net: A COVID-19 prediction network based on multivariate spatio-temporal information

The modern urban population features a high population density and a fast population flow, and COVID-19 has strong transmission ability, long incubation period, and other characteristics. Considering only the time sequence of COVID-19 transmission cannot effectively respond to the current epidemic transmission situation. The distance between cities and population density information also have a significant impact on the transmission of the virus. Currently, cross-domain transmission prediction models do not fully exploit the time-space information and fluctuation trend of data, and cannot reasonably predict the trend of infectious diseases by integrating time-space multi-source information. To solve this problem, this paper proposes the COVID-19 prediction network (STG-Net) based on multivariate spatio-temporal information, which introduces the Spatial Information Mining module (SIM) and the Temporal Information Mining module (TIM) to mine the spatio-temporal information of the data in a deeper level, and uses the slope feature method to further mine the fluctuation trend of the data. Also, we introduce the Gramian Angular Field module (GAF), which converts one-dimensional data into two-dimensional images, further enhancing the network's feature mining capability in the time and feature dimension, ultimately combining spatiotemporal information to predict daily newly confirmed cases. We tested the network on datasets from China, Australia, the United Kingdom, France, and Netherlands. The experimental results show that STG-Net has better prediction performance than existing prediction models, with an average decision coefficient R2 of 98.23% on the datasets from five countries, as well as good long- and short-term prediction ability and overall good robustness.

How containment policy and medical service impact COVID-19 transmission: A cross-national comparison among China, the USA, and Sweden

As COVID-19 shows a heterogeneous spreading process globally, investigating factors associated with COVID-19 spreading among different countries will provide information for containment strategy and medical service decisions. A significant challenge for analyzing how these factors impact COVID-19 transmission is assessing key epidemiological parameters and how they change under different containment strategies across different nations. This paper builds a COVID-19 spread simulation model to estimate the core COVID-19 epidemiological parameters. Then, the correlation between these core COVID-19 epidemiological parameters and the times of publicly announced interventions is analyzed, including three typical countries, China (strictly containment), the USA (moderately control), and Sweden (loose control). Results show that the recovery rate leads to a distinct COVID-19 transmission process in the three countries, as all three countries finally have similar and close to zero spreading rates in the third period of COVID-19 transmission. Then, an epidemic fundamental diagram between COVID-19 "active infections" and "current patients" is discovered, which could plan a country's COVID-19 medical capacity and containment strategies when combined with the COVID-19 spreading simulation model. Based on that, the hypothetical policies are proved effectively, which will give support for future infectious diseases.

Prescriptive Analytics-Based SIRM Model for Predicting Covid-19 Outbreak

Predicting the outbreak of a pandemic is an important measure in order to help saving people lives threatened by Covid-19. Having information about the possible spread of the pandemic, authorities and people can make better decisions. For example, such analyses help developing better strategies for distributing vaccines and medicines. This paper has modified the original Susceptible-Infectious-Recovered (SIR) model to Susceptible-Immune-Infected-Recovered (SIRM) which includes the Immunity ratio as a parameter to enhance the prediction of the pandemic. SIR is a widely used model to predict the spread of a pandemic. Many types of pandemics imply many variants of the SIR models which make it very difficult to find out the best model that matches the running pandemic. The simulation of this paper used the published data about the spread of the pandemic in order to examine our new SIRM. The results showed clearly that our new SIRM covering the aspects of vaccine and medicine is an appropriate model to predict the behavior of the pandemic.

The Impact of Preventive Strategies Adopted during Large Events on the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of the Tokyo Olympics to Provide Guidance for Future Large Events

This study aimed to analyze the impact of hosting large events on the spread of pandemics, taking Tokyo Olympics 2020 as a case study. A risk assessment method for the whole organization process was established, which could be used to evaluate the effectiveness of various risk mitigation measures. Different scenarios for Games participants and Japanese residents during the Tokyo Olympics were designed based on the infection control protocols proposed by the Olympic Committee and local governments. A modified Wells-Riley model considering the influence of social distance, masking and vaccination, and an SIQRV model that introduced the effect of quarantine and vaccination strategies on the pandemic spread were developed in this study. Based on the two models, our predicted results of daily confirmed cases and cumulative cases were obtained and compared with reported data, where good agreement was achieved. The results show that the two core infection control strategies of the bubble scheme and frequent testing scheme curbed the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic during the Tokyo Olympics. Among Games participants, Japanese local staff accounted for more than 60% of the total in positive cases due to their large population and most relaxed travel restrictions. The surge in positive cases was mainly attributed to the high transmission rate of the Delta variant and the low level of immunization in Japan. Based on our simulation results, the risk management flaws for the Tokyo Olympics were identified and improvement measures were investigated. Moreover, a further analysis was carried out on the impact of different preventive measures with respect to minimizing the transmission of new variants with higher transmissibility. Overall, the findings in this study can help policymakers to design scientifically based and practical countermeasures to cope with pandemics during the hosting of large events.

On the accuracy of Covid-19 forecasting methods in Russia for two years

The effectiveness of predicting the dynamics of the coronavirus pandemic for Russia as a whole and for Moscow is studied for a two-year period beginning March 2020. The comparison includes well-proven population models and statistic methods along with a new data-driven model based on the LSTM neural network. The latter model is trained on a set of Russian regions simultaneously, and predicts the total number of cases on the 14-day forecast horizon. Prediction accuracy is estimated by the mean absolute percent error (MAPE). The results show that all the considered models, both simple and more complex, have similar efficiency. The lowest error achieved is 18% MAPE for Moscow and 8% MAPE for Russia.

Sequential time-window learning with approximate Bayesian computation: an application to epidemic forecasting

The long duration of the COVID-19 pandemic allowed for multiple bursts in the infection and death rates, the so-called epidemic waves. This complex behavior is no longer tractable by simple compartmental model and requires more sophisticated mathematical techniques for analyzing epidemic data and generating reliable forecasts. In this work, we propose a framework for analyzing complex dynamical systems by dividing the data in consecutive time-windows to be separately analyzed. We fit parameters for each time-window through an approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) algorithm, and the posterior distribution of parameters obtained for one window is used as the prior distribution for the next window. This Bayesian learning approach is tested with data on COVID-19 cases in multiple countries and is shown to improve ABC performance and to produce good short-term forecasting.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11071-022-07865-x.

LiteCovidNet: A lightweight deep neural network model for detection of COVID-19 using X-ray images

The syndrome called COVID-19 which was firstly spread in Wuhan, China has already been declared a globally "Pandemic." To stymie the further spread of the virus at an early stage, detection needs to be done. Artificial Intelligence-based deep learning models have gained much popularity in the detection of many diseases within the confines of biomedical sciences. In this paper, a deep neural network-based "LiteCovidNet" model is proposed that detects COVID-19 cases as the binary class (COVID-19, Normal) and the multi-class (COVID-19, Normal, Pneumonia) bifurcated based on chest X-ray images of the infected persons. An accuracy of 100% and 98.82% is achieved for binary and multi-class classification respectively which is competitive performance as compared to the other recent related studies. Hence, our methodology can be used by health professionals to validate the detection of COVID-19 infected patients at an early stage with convenient cost and better accuracy.

An extended epidemic model with vaccination: Weak-immune SIRVI

A new modification of the SIR epidemic model incorporating vaccination is proposed in the present paper. The recent trend of vaccinating against COVID-19 pandemic reveals a strong control of infectious disease. On the other hand, it is observed in some countries that, the vaccine application offers less control over the spread of virus, since some portion of vaccinated people is not totally protected/immuned and viable to infection again after a while due to weak/loss immunity offered by the vaccine. This requires transition from vaccinated department to infected for COVID-19. This character of COVID-19 helps us reconsideration of the vaccinated department by letting some part of it being exposed to the infection again. Taking this into account, as a result of modification of the SIR model, the epidemiology is now governed with three main epidemic dimensionless parameters, having provided an initial fraction of infected individuals. The dimensionless model with these parameters is analyzed initially from the stability point of view. The effects of weak immunity are then illustrated numerically on some chosen parameter range. How some of the countries applying the COVID-19 vaccine programs affected by weak/loss immunity is eventually examined with the modified model. The rate of vaccination as well as the basic Reproduction number are found to affect the epidemic demography of the population subject to weak or loss of immunity. In the case of a high vaccination rate, the countries are not anticipated to be highly influenced by the weak immunity of low level, whereas weak immunity prolongs the contagious disease by appearance of secondary multiple peaks in the epidemic compartments with relatively small vaccination rates and basic Reproductive numbers.

ECG-iCOVIDNet: Interpretable AI model to identify changes in the ECG signals of post-COVID subjects

OBJECTIVE

Studies showed that many COVID-19 survivors develop sub-clinical to clinical heart damage, even if subjects did not have underlying heart disease before COVID. Since Electrocardiogram (ECG) is a reliable technique for cardiovascular disease diagnosis, this study analyzes the 12-lead ECG recordings of healthy and post-COVID (COVID-recovered) subjects to ascertain ECG changes after suffering from COVID-19.

METHOD

We propose a shallow 1-D convolutional neural network (CNN) deep learning architecture, namely ECG-iCOVIDNet, to distinguish ECG data of post-COVID subjects and healthy subjects. Further, we employed ShAP technique to interpret ECG segments that are highlighted by the CNN model for the classification of ECG recordings into healthy and post-COVID subjects.

RESULTS

ECG data of 427 healthy and 105 post-COVID subjects were analyzed. Results show that the proposed ECG-iCOVIDNet model could classify the ECG recordings of healthy and post-COVID subjects better than the state-of-the-art deep learning models. The proposed model yields an F₁-score of 100%.

CONCLUSION

So far, we have not come across any other study with an in-depth ECG signal analysis of the COVID-recovered subjects. In this study, it is shown that the shallow ECG-iCOVIDNet CNN model performed good for distinguishing ECG signals of COVID-recovered subjects from those of healthy subjects. In line with the literature, this study confirms changes in the ECG signals of COVID-recovered patients that could be captured by the proposed CNN model. Successful deployment of such systems can help the doctors identify the changes in the ECG of the post-COVID subjects on time that can save many lives.

COVID-19 Global Humanitarian Response Plan: An optimal distribution model for high-priority countries

BACKGROUND

The 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has spread rapidly worldwide, and the outbreak of the disease was designated a global pandemic by the World Health Organization. Such outbreaks would certainly be catastrophic for some of the best-ranked health systems and would be more catastrophic in countries with more fragile health systems. Accordingly, the World Health Organization and other organizations have been appealing to donor countries to support a rapid response plan. The primary objectives of this response plan are to appeal for funds from donors and to distribute these funds to the most affected countries based on the requirements.

METHODS

In this study, we developed a mathematical model to provide initial insights into the efficient and equitable distribution of urgent funds to high-priority countries. Three phases were proposed for the construction of this mathematical model. In the first phase, the final epidemic sizes in all the target countries were predicted by using three epidemiological models. In the second phase, the urgent requirements for each country were estimated in parallel with the estimates issued by the humanitarian response plan, based on the size of the epidemic and several other factors. In the third and final phase, a multi-objective optimization model was proposed. The first objective was to maximize the funds from donors to cover all the requirements. The second objective was to minimize the unmet demands by ensuring a fair distribution of the urgent funds based on the requirements of the target countries.

RESULTS

Predictions of the basic reproduction numbers and the final epidemic sizes were calculated for all target countries. The urgent requirements were estimated, and the requirements issued by the humanitarian response plan for all target countries were also considered. Moreover, a proposed response plan for the distribution network was demonstrated. Donors must provide urgent funds exceeding US$ 2,608,084,209 to cover at least 40 % of each target country's requirements. Overall, results demonstrate the importance of an urgent and fair distribution of funds to the target countries to overcome the outbreak of COVID-19.

CONCLUSIONS

Rapid responses by donor countries to humanitarian appeals will facilitate the immediate and fair distribution of relief supplies to the poorest countries. This distribution may help to support health systems, restrain the spread of COVID-19, and prevent an unlimited catastrophe.

On the fractional SIRD mathematical model and control for the transmission of COVID-19: The first and the second waves of the disease in Iran and Japan

In this paper, a fractional-order SIRD mathematical model is presented with Caputo derivative for the transmission of COVID-19 between humans. We calculate the steady-states of the system and discuss their stability. We also discuss the existence and uniqueness of a non-negative solution for the system under study. Additionally, we obtain an approximate response by implementing the fractional Euler method. Next, we investigate the first and the second waves of the disease in Iran and Japan; then we give a prediction concerning the second wave of the disease. We display the numerical simulations for different derivative orders in order to evaluate the efficacy of the fractional concept on the system behaviors. We also calculate the optimal control of the system and display its numerical simulations.

An Enhanced SEIR Model for Prediction of COVID-19 with Vaccination Effect

Currently, the spread of COVID-19 is running at a constant pace. The current situation is not so alarming, but every pandemic has a history of three waves. Two waves have been seen, and now expecting the third wave. Compartmental models are one of the methods that predict the severity of a pandemic. An enhanced SEIR model is expected to predict the new cases of COVID-19. The proposed model has an additional compartment of vaccination. This proposed model is the SEIRV model that predicts the severity of COVID-19 when the population is vaccinated. The proposed model is simulated with three conditions. The first condition is when social distancing is not incorporated, while the second condition is when social distancing is included. The third one condition is when social distancing is combined when the population is vaccinated. The result shows an epidemic growth rate of about 0.06 per day, and the number of infected people doubles every 10.7 days. Still, with imparting social distancing, the proposed model obtained the value of R₀ is 1.3. Vaccination of infants and kids will be considered as future work.

A new hybrid prediction model of cumulative COVID-19 confirmed data

Establishing an accurate and efficient prediction model is of great significance for governments and other social organizations to formulate prevention and control policies and curb the explosive spread of the pandemic. To improve prediction accuracy of cumulative COVID-19 confirmed data, a new hybrid prediction model based on gradient-based optimizer variational mode decomposition (GVMD), extreme learning machine (ELM), and autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA), named GVMD-ELM-ARIMA, is proposed. To solve the problem of selecting the k value and the penalty factor α in variational mode decomposition (VMD), this paper proposes gradient-based optimizer variational mode decomposition (GVMD), which realizes the self-adaptive determination of k value and α value. Firstly, GVMD decomposes the cumulative COVID-19 confirmed data into some intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) and a residual component (IMFr). Secondly, IMFs are predicted by ELM. Then, IMFr is predicted by ARIMA. Finally, the final prediction results are obtained by reconstructing the prediction result of IMFs and IMFr. The cumulative COVID-19 confirmed data of the United States, India and Russia is used to verify its effectiveness. Taking the United States as an example, compared with the average MAPE, RMSE and MAE of the single model, the average MAPE of the hybrid model is reduced by 47.27%, the average RMSE is reduced by 44.50%, and the average MAE is reduced by 55.34%. Compared with GVMD-ELM-ELM, GVMD-ELM-ARIMA proposed in this paper reduces the MAPE by 60%, the RMSE by 56.85%, and the MAE by 61.61%. The experimental results show that GVMD-ELM-ARIMA has best prediction accuracy, and it provides a new method for predicting the cumulative COVID-19 confirmed data.

Application of Artificial Intelligence-Based Regression Methods in the Problem of COVID-19 Spread Prediction: A Systematic Review

COVID-19 is one of the greatest challenges humanity has faced recently, forcing a change in the daily lives of billions of people worldwide. Therefore, many efforts have been made by researchers across the globe in the attempt of determining the models of COVID-19 spread. The objectives of this review are to analyze some of the open-access datasets mostly used in research in the field of COVID-19 regression modeling as well as present current literature based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods for regression tasks, like disease spread. Moreover, we discuss the applicability of Machine Learning (ML) and Evolutionary Computing (EC) methods that have focused on regressing epidemiology curves of COVID-19, and provide an overview of the usefulness of existing models in specific areas. An electronic literature search of the various databases was conducted to develop a comprehensive review of the latest AI-based approaches for modeling the spread of COVID-19. Finally, a conclusion is drawn from the observation of reviewed papers that AI-based algorithms have a clear application in COVID-19 epidemiological spread modeling and may be a crucial tool in the combat against coming pandemics.

Automated detection of COVID-19 from CT scan using convolutional neural network

Under the prevailing circumstances of the global pandemic of COVID-19, early diagnosis and accurate detection of COVID-19 through tests/screening and, subsequently, isolation of the infected people would be a proactive measure. Artificial intelligence (AI) based solutions, using Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and exploiting the Deep Learning model's diagnostic capabilities, have been studied in this paper. Transfer Learning approach, based on VGG16 and ResNet50 architectures, has been used to develop an algorithm to detect COVID-19 from CT scan images consisting of Healthy (Normal), COVID-19, and Pneumonia categories. This paper adopts data augmentation and fine-tuning techniques to improve and optimize the VGG16 and ResNet50 model. Further, stratified 5-fold cross-validation has been conducted to test the robustness and effectiveness of the model. The proposed model performs exceptionally well in case of binary classification (COVID-19 vs. Normal) with an average classification accuracy of more than 99% in both VGG16 and ResNet50 based models. In multiclass classification (COVID-19 vs. Normal vs. Pneumonia), the proposed model achieves an average classification accuracy of 86.74% and 88.52% using VGG16 and ResNet50 architectures as baseline, respectively. Experimental results show that the proposed model achieves superior performance and can be used for automated detection of COVID-19 from CT scans.