Modelling personal cautiousness during the COVID-19 pandemic: a case study for Turkey and Italy

Although policy makers recommend or impose various standard measures, such as social distancing, movement restrictions, wearing face masks and washing hands, against the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, individuals follow these measures with varying degrees of meticulousness, as the perceptions regarding the impending danger and the efficacy of the measures are not uniform within a population. In this paper, a compartmental mathematical model is presented that takes into account the importance of personal cautiousness (as evidenced, for example, by personal hygiene habits and carefully following the rules) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Two countries, Turkey and Italy, are studied in detail, as they share certain social commonalities by their Mediterranean cultural codes. A mathematical analysis of the model is performed to find the equilibria and their local stability, focusing on the transmission parameters and investigating the sensitivity with respect to the parameters. Focusing on the (assumed) viral exposure rate, possible scenarios for the spread of COVID-19 are examined by varying the viral exposure of incautious people to the environment. The presented results emphasize and quantify the importance of personal cautiousness in the spread of the disease.