Projection of COVID-19 Outbreak and Estimation of Bed Shortages During the Nankai Trough Earthquake by SIR Model

Abstract

A massive earthquake would occur even under the pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19); therefore, it is necessary to estimate the impacts of complex disasters like this and it prepare for these in advance. Since COVID-19 has been caused outbreaks in closed and dense spaces, there is a concern that the infection may spread at shelters during the Nankai Trough Earthquake. Furthermore, after the massive earthquake, it is expected that the infected people will not receive adequate medical care due to the collapse of medical care system by physical damage of the facilities and increase in medical demand from injured people. Therefore, in this study, the outbreak of infection and bed shortages were estimated based on the Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) mathematical model to address the prevention of medical collapse in the earthquake. As a result, it was found that the maximum shortage of hospital beds would be 266, 000 beds and the maximum shortage period would be 350 days.