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Accurately estimating the number of infections that actually occur in the earliest phases of an outbreak and predicting the number of new cases per day in various countries is crucial for real-time monitoring of COVID-19 transmission. Numerous studies have used mathematical models to predict the progression of infection rates in several countries following the appearance of epidemiological outbreaks. In this study, we analyze the data reported and then study several logistical-type phenomenological models and their application in practice for forecasting infection evolution. When several epidemic waves follow one another, it is important to stress that a traditional logistic model cannot necessarily be fully adapted to the data made available. New models are being introduced to simultaneously take account of human behavior, measures taken by the government, and epidemiological conditions. This research used a generalized logistic model based on parameters that vary over time to describe trends in COVID-19-infected cases in countries that have undergone several waves. In two-wave scenarios, the parameters of the model evolve dynamically over time following a logistic function, where the first and second waves are characterized by two extreme values for the early period and the late one, respectively.

Mutations allow viruses to continuously evolve by changing their genetic code to adapt to the hosts they infect. It is an adaptive and evolutionary mechanism that helps viruses acquire characteristics favoring their survival and propagation. The COVID-19 pandemic declared by the WHO in March 2020 is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The non-stop adaptive mutations of this virus and the emergence of several variants over time with characteristics favoring their spread constitute one of the biggest obstacles that researchers face in controlling this pandemic. Understanding the mutation mechanism allows for the adoption of anticipatory measures and the proposal of strategies to control its propagation. In this study, we focus on the mutations of this virus, and we propose the SARSMutOnto ontology to model SARS-CoV-2 mutations reported by Pango researchers. A detailed description is given for each mutation. The genes where the mutations occur and the genomic structure of this virus are also included. The sub-lineages and the recombinant sub-lineages resulting from these mutations are additionally represented while maintaining their hierarchy. We developed a Python-based tool to automatically generate this ontology from various published Pango source files. At the end of this paper, we provide some examples of SPARQL queries that can be used to exploit this ontology. SARSMutOnto might become a ‘wet bench’ machine learning tool for predicting likely future mutations based on previous mutations.