Calibration and comparison of SIR, SEIR/SLIR and SLAIR models for influenza dynamics: insights from the 2016-2017 season in the Valencian Community, Spain.

Influenza and influenza-like illnesses pose significant challenges to healthcare systems globally. Mathematical models play a crucial role in understanding their dynamics, calibrating them to specific scenarios and making projections about their evolution over time. This study proposes a calibration process for three different but well-known compartmental models-SIR, SEIR/SLIR and SLAIR-using influenza data from the 2016-2017 season in the Valencian Community, Spain.

Estimation of the basic reproduction number of COVID-19 from the incubation period distribution.

The estimates of the future course of spreading of the SARS-CoV-2 virus are frequently based on Markovian models in which the duration of residence in any compartment is exponentially distributed. Accordingly, the basic reproduction number is also determined from formulae where it is related to the parameters of such models. The observations show that the start of infectivity of an individual appears nearly at the same time as the onset of symptoms, while the distribution of the incubation period is not an exponential.