THE FIRST YEAR OF COVID-19 IN CROATIA - A MATHEMATICAL MODEL

The new coronavirus has spread around the world at an unprecedented speed. Understanding patterns of disease spread is an important contribution to controlling any epidemic, and today\u27s mathematical methods offer a plethora of proven models to choose from. We provide a brief overview of epidemiological concepts, papers pertaining to mathematical modelling, and present a robust, simple mathematical model to model incidence of COVID-19 cases in Croatia during the first year of the disease. For our models, we chose logistic, Gumbel and Richards functions, with parameters generated using the Levenberg-Marquardt iterative method of nonlinear regression. In conclusion, all three models provided adequate estimation of incidence curve and final number of infected during the chosen time period, with relatively minor differences depending on chosen parameters of significance. The model using the logistic function proved to be the most applicable to available data. While no model can give the answers to ending the pandemic, this approach can provide a simple prognostic tool to evaluate interventions and estimate disease spread