The Measurement of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Cambodia Using the SIR Model

Abstract

The spread of COVID-19 started at the end of 2019 in Wuhan province of China. The relevant authority hardly controlled the spread of the disease due to the virus being new and infected via the breath, the non-availability of vaccine, the lack of enough Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), the non-availability of adequate testing facilities, including the inadequate hospitalization facilities, such as limited numbers of available beds in hospitals for the patients. The lack of these facilities led to ineffective control of the pandemic. The new daily infected cases in Cambodia, a seven-day rolling average, was 528 (ABVC, 2021). Some strategies were carried out by the authorities in the infected areas to control the transmission of the virus. Those strategies were social distancing (including reducing public transportation, closing schools, banning funerals and weddings, and keeping people out of the streets), wearing masks, a centralized quarantine system, curfew, and lockdown. During the period of the pandemic, lockdown in the infected areas, even though it had a substantial adverse economic impact, was considered one of the most popular policies, generally carried out by government authorities in some countries, such as China and other European nations, such as Italy, Spain, France, and the United Kingdom that the level of infection was very high at the start of the pandemic in the early of 2020.