Evaluation of Preventive Measures and Forecasting of COVID-19 Infection: Case Study Egypt.
Abstract Background COVID-19 is a highly infectious disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. This article assessed the effectiveness of preventive measures of COVID-19 infection, including social distancing (SD) and quarantine (Q) of patients and contacts in Egypt. Methods A simple model was developed to predict the infection rate without preventive measures. The article utilizes fertile meta- heuristic technique and particle swarm optimization (PSO), to predict the growth of the disease. Results A correlation between the predicted and actual infected cases, validated the proposed forecasting algorithm. Preventive measures together with the Egyptian Government stay home order reduced 98% of expected infections. PSO analyses showed that infection and death rates will continue to increase particularly with lifting these restrictive preventive measures. Conclusions The advised PSO model could predict COVID-19 infection and death rates with high degree of accuracy. This prediction model could help health authorities in decision making.