Advances in Research

A novel compartmental model is proposed to project the COVID-19 dynamics in Bangladesh. The exposed population is divided into two classes: tested and not tested. Model parameters are estimated by fitting the output with empirical COVID-19 data of Bangladesh from 7 April 2020 to 15 June 2020. It is found that even if 90% of exposed individuals are tested, number of unidentified cases (recovered or dead) is 3 to 4 times than that of identified cases. As of 15 June 2020, Bangladesh is using the Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) based test to detect the novel Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The impact of false negative rate of this test on unidentified infection is analyzed. It is found that the year-end total recoveries (deaths) surges 700 (800) times if the false negative rate is doubled. Periodic lockdown and relaxation intervals are incorporated by defining the effective contact rate (β) as a periodic function of time. Impact of lockdown is perspicuous from the periodic fluctuation of the basic reproduction number ( ). It is observed that a 90-day-lockdwon reduces the final outcome by 3% while a 30-day-lockdwon increases it by 2%. On other hand, casualties are 10 to 100 times worse in case of no lockdown even with less than half effective contact rate. Analysis of strictness of isolation reveals that a 12.5% increase in the strictness coefficient reduces the exposed population 2.5 times whereas a 37.5% decrease in it intensifies the outcome nearly 9 times. Projections up to 6 April 2021 suggests that the epidemic will reach its peak in Bangladesh in August 2020.