Estimating the last day for COVID-19 outbreak in mainland China

1AbstractOur main aim is to estimate the last day for COVID-19 outbreak in mainland China. We developed mathematical models to predict reasonable bounds on the date of end of the COVID-19 epidemics in mainland China with strong quarantine and testing measures for a sufficiently long time. We used reported data in China from January 20, 2020 to April 9, 2020. We firstly used a deterministic approach to obtain a formula to compute the probability distribution of the extinction date by combining the models and continuous-time Markov processes. Then we present the individual based model (IMB) simulations to compare the result by deterministic approach and show the absolute difference between the estimated cumulative probability distribution computed by simulations and formula. We provide the predictions of the last day of epidemic for different fractions f of asymptomatic infectious that become reported symptomatic infectious.2Key pointsWe conducted a study of the last day for COVID-19 outbreak in mainland China. By using a deterministic approach, we obtain a formula to compute the probability distribution of the extinction date.We estimated the probability distribution of the extinction date by individual-based stochastic simulations and compared the results from two methods (simulations and formula).Stochastic simulations were used to precisely estimate the cumulative probability distribution of the date of end of the epidemic.We predict the last day of epidemic for different fractions f of asymptomatic infectious that become reported symptomatic infectious.