Epidemic Data Analysis of Three Variants of COVID-19 Spread in Indonesia

Abstract

Three variants of COVID-19 had been found in Indonesia. A control strategy may rely on the transmission rate of the variant. This study aims to investigate how the variants spread in Indonesia by computing a basic and effective reproduction number on the national and province scale. The basic reproduction number shows the indicator of initial transmission rate of alpha variant computed by an exponential growth rate model. The effective reproduction number describes the dynamic of the transmission rate estimated based on a Bayesian approach. This study revealed that each variant shows different characteristics. The alpha variant of COVID-19 in Indonesia was mainly initiated from big cities, then it spread to all provinces quickly because the control strategies were not established well at the beginning. A rapid increase of the effective reproduction number about July 2021 showed a novel delta variant, but it could be managed quite well by a large number of testing and stronger restrictions. Before the end of 2021, a novel variant omicron was also shown by the steeper change of the effective reproduction number. Thus, the variant spread rate can be estimated by how steep the effective reproduction number change is.