THE PROLIFERATION OF COVID-19 IN SAUDI ARABIA ACCORDING TO GOMPERTZ MODEL

Abstract

Mathematical modeling can be a powerful tool to predict disease spread in large populations as well as to understand different factors which can impact it such as social distancing and vaccinations. This study aimed to describe the spread the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in Saudi Arabia using a simple discrete variant of the Gompertz model. Unlike time-continuous models which are based on differential equations, this model treats time as a discrete variable and is then represented by a first-order difference equation. Using this model, we performed a short-term prediction of the number of cumulative cases of COVID-19 in the country and we show that the results match the confirmed reports.