A numerical study of spatio-temporal COVID-19 vaccine model via finite-difference operator-splitting and meshless techniques

In this paper, a new spatio-temporal model is formulated to study the spread of coronavirus infection (COVID-19) in a spatially heterogeneous environment with the impact of vaccination. Initially, a detailed qualitative analysis of the spatio-temporal model is presented. The existence, uniqueness, positivity, and boundedness of the model solution are investigated. Local asymptotical stability of the diffusive COVID-19 model at steady state is carried out using well-known criteria. Moreover, a suitable nonlinear Lyapunov functional is constructed for the global asymptotical stability of the spatio-temporal model. Further, the model is solved numerically based on uniform and non-uniform initial conditions. Two different numerical schemes named: finite difference operator-splitting and mesh-free operator-splitting based on multi-quadratic radial basis functions are implemented in the numerical study. The impact of diffusion as well as some pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical control measures, i.e., reducing an effective contact causing infection transmission, vaccination rate and vaccine waning rate on the disease dynamics is presented in a spatially heterogeneous environment. Furthermore, the impact of the aforementioned interventions is investigated with and without diffusion on the incidence of disease. The simulation results conclude that the random motion of individuals has a significant impact on the disease dynamics and helps in setting a better control strategy for disease eradication.