Analysis of Imposition and Periodic Relaxation of Lockdown on the Spread of COVID-19 in India through Networked SEIR Model

In this paper, an investigation is carried out to analyse how periodic lockdown and unlocking have helped India to combat the first wave of COVID-19. To that end, a networked SEIR model is considered that captures the spreading dynamics of the disease in sixteen of the worst affected states of India. In this regard, a distance based contact matrix is constructed to reflect the connectivity between states. Various rate parameters of the model are estimated as well as the basic reproduction number $(\mathscr{R}_{0})$ of each of the sixteen states for each phase of lockdown is found out. Finally, a comparison is drawn between the simulated results of cumulative infected caseload using the estimated parameters and that with the real COVID-19 data of India till December 31, 2020, which establishes the effectiveness of the method.