Impact assessment of containment measure against COVID-19 spread in Morocco

Since the appearance of the first case of COVID-19 in Morocco on March, 02, 2020, the cumulative number of reported infectious cases continues to increase and, up to date, the peak-time of infection is not reached yet. In this study, we propose a Susceptible-Asymptomatic-Infectious deterministic model to evaluate the impact of compulsory containment imposed in Morocco on March, 21 on the spread of COVID-19 epidemic across the country. The model takes account of the unconfined individuals that continue to work or to leave their home for urgent needs and the existence of infectious asymptomatic and unreported individuals within susceptible population. Furthermore, the model is able to predict the peak-size, peak-time, final size and epidemic duration according to different rates of containment. Advanced knowledge of these details will be of great interest to establish an optimal plan-of-action to control or eradicate the epidemic. Indeed, mitigating and delaying the epidemic peak allow the official health authorities to anticipate and control the spread of COVID-19. Moreover, prediction of the epidemic duration can help the government to predict the end time of containment to avoid consequent social-economic damages as well. Using our model, the basic reproduction number R(0) is estimated to be 2.9949, with [Formula: see text] reflecting a high speed of spread of the epidemic. The model shows that the compulsory containment can be efficient if more than 73% of population are confined. In the absence of other efficient measure of control, even with 90% of containment, the end-time is estimated to happen on July, 4, 2020 with 7558 final cumulative cases. Furthermore, a threshold value of containment rate, below which the epidemic duration is postponed, has been determined. Finally, the sensitivity analysis is performed and showed that the COVID-19 dynamics strongly depends on the asymptomatic duration as well as the contact and containment rates. Our previsions can help the government to adjust its plan-of-action to fight the disease and to face the social-economic shock induced by the containment.