The sooner strict public health strategies are applied the lower the
peak of the epidemics: The SARS-CoV-2 case
Abstract
An epidemiological model is proposed to analyze the COVID-19 epidemics
when control interventions are being applied to reduce the speed of the
disease. The analyzed model includes parameters that describe control
strategies such as behavioral changes of susceptible individuals to
reduce the transmission of the disease, rates of diagnosis of the
infectious individuals, and other control measures as cleaning and
disinfection of contaminated environments. The proposed model is
calibrated using Bayesian statistics and the official cumulative
confirmed cases for COVID-19 in Mexico. We show which public health
strategies contribute the most to the variation of $R_0$. A central
result is the fact that the peak of the epidemics can drastically be
changed depending on the time when the control strategies are introduced