Predicting the evolution and control of the COVID-19 pandemic in Portugal

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a worldwide pandemic that has been affecting Portugal since 2 March 2020. The Portuguese government has been making efforts to contradict the exponential growth through social isolation measures. We have developed a mathematical model to predict the impact of such measures in the number of infected cases and peak of infection. We estimate the peak to be around 2 million infected cases by the beginning of May if no additional measures are taken. The model shows that current measures effectively isolated 25-30% of the population, contributing to some reduction on the infection peak. Importantly, our simulations show that the infection burden can be further reduced with higher isolation degree, providing information for a second intervention.