%0 Journal Article
%T Estimating the Level of Asymptomatic COVID-19 Infections in Northern Ireland in 2020
%A Peter A. Hall
%A Gabor Kiss
%A Tilman Kuhn
%A Salissou Moutari
%A Ellen Patterson
%A Emily Smith
%J Open Journal of Modelling and Simulation
%P 190-218
%@ 2327-4026
%D 2022
%I Scientific Research Publishing
%R 10.4236/ojmsi.2022.102011
%X <span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">The identification and understanding of COVID-19
potential routes of transmission are fundamental to informing policies and
strategies to successfully control the outbreak. Various studies highlighted
asymptomatic infections as one of the silent drivers of the epidemic. An
accurate estimation of the asymptomatic cases and the understanding</span> <span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">of </span><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">their contribution </span><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">to</span><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\"> the spread of the disease
could enhance the effectiveness of current control strategies, mainly based on
the symptom onset, to curb transmission. We investigate the dynamics of the
COVID-19 epidemic in Northern Ireland during the period 1st March 25th </span><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">to </span><span style=\"font-family:;\" \"=\"\"><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">December 2020 to estimate
the proportion of the asymptomatic infections in the country. We extended our
previous model to </span><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">include </span></span><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">the </span><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">stage of the asymptomatic infection, and we
implement the corres</span><span style=\"font-family:;\" \"=\"\"><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">ponding deterministic model using a publicly
available dataset. We partition the data into 11 sets over the period of study
and fit the model parameters on the consecutive intervals using the cumulative
number of confirmed positive cas</span><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">es for each
interval. Moreover, we assess numerically the impacts of uncer</span><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">tainty </span><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">in testing and we provide estimates of the
reproduction numbers using the </span><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">fitted parameters. We found that the
proportion of asymptomatically infectious subpopulation</span></span><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">s</span><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">, in Northern Ireland during the period of study,
ranged between 5% and 25% of exposed individuals. Also, the estimate of the
basic reproduction number, <em>R</em><sub>0</sub></span><span><span></span><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">, is 3.3089. The lower and upper estimate</span><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\">s</span><span style=\"font-family:Verdana;\"> for herd immunity are
(0.6181,</span><span style=\"font-family:;\" \"=\"\"> </span><span
%K Pandemic
%K Epidemic
%K SARS-CoV-2
%K COVID-19
%K Compartmental Model
%K SEIAR Model
%K Basic Reproduction Number
%K Effective Reproduction Number
%K Parameter Estimates
%K Fitted Model
%K Testing Uncertainty
%K Asymptomatic Infection
%K Northern Ireland
%U http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=116868