We model the incidence of the COVID-19 disease during the first wave of the epidemic in Castilla-Leon (Spain). Within-province dynamics may be governed by a generalized logistic map, but this lacks of spatial structure. To couple the provinces, we relate the daily new infections through a density-independent parameter that entails positive spatial correlation. Pointwise values of the input parameters are fitted by an optimization procedure. To accommodate the significant variability in the daily data, with abruptly increasing and decreasing magnitudes, a random noise is incorporated into the model, whose parameters are calibrated by maximum likelihood estimation. The calculated paths of the stochastic response and the probabilistic regions are in good agreement with the data.
Keywords: COVID‐19 infections; generalized logistic differential equation; parameter calibration; spatial correlation; stochastic modeling.
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