The emergence of the COVID-19 outbreak has caused a pandemic situation in over 210 countries. Controlling the spread of this disease has proven difficult despite several resources employed. Millions of hospitalizations and deaths have been observed, with thousands of cases occurring daily with many measures in place. Due to the complex nature of COVID-19, we proposed a system of time-fractional equations to better understand the transmission of the disease. Non-locality in the model has made fractional differential equations appropriate for modeling. Solving these types of models is computationally demanding. Our proposed generalized compartmental COVID-19 model incorporates effective contact rate, transition rate, quarantine rate, disease-induced death rate, natural death rate, natural recovery rate, and recovery rate of quarantine infected for a holistic study of the coronavirus disease. A detailed analysis of the proposed model is carried out, including the existence and uniqueness of solutions, local and global stability analysis of the disease-free equilibrium (symmetry), and sensitivity analysis. Furthermore, numerical solutions of the proposed model are obtained with the generalized Adam–Bashforth–Moulton method developed for the fractional-order model. Our analysis and solutions profile show that each of these incorporated parameters is very important in controlling the spread of COVID-19. Based on the results with different fractional-order, we observe that there seems to be a third or even fourth wave of the spike in cases of COVID-19, which is currently occurring in many countries.

The emergence of the COVID-19 outbreak has caused a pandemic situation in over 210 countries. Controlling the spread of this disease has proven difficult despite several resources employed. Millions of hospitalization and deaths have been observed, and thousands of cases daily with many measures in place. Due to the complex nature of COVID-19, we proposed a system of time-fractional equations to understand the transmission of the disease better. Nonlocality involved in the model has made fractional differential equations appropriate for modeling the behavior. However, solving these types of models is computationally demanding. Our proposed generalized compartmental COVID-19 model incorporates effective contact rate, transition rate (from exposed quarantine and recovered to susceptible and infected quarantined individuals), quarantine rate, disease-induced death rate, natural death rate, natural recovery rate, recovery rate of quarantine infected for a holistic study of the coronavirus disease. A detailed analysis of the proposed model is carried out, including the existence and uniqueness of solutions, local and global stability analysis of the disease-free equilibrium analysis, and sensitivity analysis. Furthermore, numerical solutions of the proposed model are obtained with the generalized Adam-Bashforth-Moulton method developed for the fractional order model. Our analysis and solutions profile show that each of these incorporated parameters is very important in controlling the spread of COVID-19, especially quarantining exposed and infected individuals and the effective contact rate. Based on the results with different fractional order, we observe that there seems to be a third or even fourth wave of the spike in cases of COVID-19, which is what is happening right now in many countries.