Short-term forecasts of the COVID-19 pandemic: a study case of Cameroon

In this paper, an Ensemble of Kalman filter (EnKf) approach is developed to estimate unmeasurable state variables and unknown parameters in a COVID-19 model. We first formulate a mathematical model for the dynamic transmission of COVID-19 that takes into account the circulation of free coronaviruses in the environment. We provide the basic properties of the model and compute the basic reproduction number R-0 that plays an important role in the outcome of the disease. After, assuming continuous measurement of newly COVID-19 reported cases, deceased and recovered individuals, the EnKf approach is used to estimate the unmeasured variables and unknown COVID-19 transmission rates using real data of the current COVID-19 pandemic in Cameroon. We present the forecasts of the current pandemic in Cameroon and explore the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions such as mass media-based sensitization, social distancing, face-mask wearing, contact tracing and the desinfection and decontamination of infected places by using suitable products against free coronaviruses in the environment in order to reduce the spread of the disease. Through numerical simulations, we find that at that time (i) R-0 approximate to 2.9495 meaning that the disease will not die out without any control measures, (ii) the infection from COVID-19 infected cases is more important than the infection from free coronaviruses in the environment, (iii) the number of new COVID-19 cases will still increase and there is a necessity to increase timely the surveillance by using contact tracing and sensibilisation of the population to respect social distancing, face-masks wearing through awareness programs and (iv) the eradication of the pandemic is highly dependent on the control measures taken by governments. (c) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.