Modeling of COVID-19 outbreak in Gaza Strip using SEIR model

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is a major global health threat that was spreading very quickly around the world. Many mathematical models are being formulated to study the spread of COVID-19 and to predict its evolution, in order to help mitigating future outbreaks. The Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered (SEIR) model is considered a prevalent model that describes various diseases outbreaks including COVID-19. The model divides the individuals into four groups; susceptible, exposed, infectious, recovered. To predict the evolution of the pandemic using the SEIR model, we first estimate the parameters as well as initial conditions. In this work, we model the spreading of COVID-19 pandemic using the SEIR in Gaza Strip to identify the better fitting model for forecasting future spread. The data required for estimation was collected between March 1st, 2021 and December 31st, 2021. The simulation results using SEIR model showed a significant model fitting, as there is no considerable difference from the real data compared to the respective model values. We also study the severity of the pandemic by identifying two important parameters; the basic reproduction rate (R
o
), which determines the speed of the spread of COVID-19; and the infection fatality ratio (IFR) which estimates the proportion of deaths among all infected individuals. We obtained a value of R
o
= 0. 89. IFR value is ranged between 0.079% and 0.085%, which is less than the global average of about 0.15%.