The Required Confronting Approaches Efficacy and Time to Control Iranian COVID-19 Outbreak

The ongoing devastating epidemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Iran and the evolving public health situation is very concerning We have developed a deterministic epidemiological SEIR (Susceptible, Exposed, Infectious, Recovered) model to quantify the required time and efficacy to bring the COVID-19 outbreak under control in Iran Our results showed that the efficacy of COVID-19 confronting strategies on Feb 29th and March 9th were at 0 5 and 0 7, respectively owing to the relative equivalence number of infected cases estimated by the model and national officially reported cases Therefore, to control the COVID-19 outbreak in Iran we strongly recommend maintaining the effectiveness of interventions at 0 7 or more at least for the next 4-6 weeks Because the COVID-19 declining statistics over the next few days or weeks do not mean the definitive control of the outbreak