Epidemiological changes on the Isle of Wight after the launch of the NHS Test and Trace programme: a preliminary analysis

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Abstract

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.12.20151753: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.


    Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code and data.


    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    This study has limitations. Data from the Contact Tracing and Advisory Service (CTAS) and time series of cases traced by the app are not yet publicly available. This study is therefore unable to evaluate the effect of the app independently of the effect of the wider TTI programme. We did not adjust for changes in testing practice, and so likely overestimated the reproduction number over time when widespread community testing became available in the week beginning 5th May in the Isle of Wight, and in other areas in the week beginning 18 May. We hypothesise that these biases become less pronounced after one week. The Isle of Wight’s synthetic controls are not perfect matches, as is evident from several time periods that are significantly different between the Isle of Wight and its synthetic control before the start of the TTI pilot. This is, however, not surprising given that the Isle of Wight’s unusual epidemic trajectory and geography make it harder to find a perfect synthetic control. We are currently using the Public Health England data which is published daily [2] to provide an approximate surveillance and nowcasting application EpiNow-C19 [1]. To improve the accuracy of this and to build on the results of this study, we recommend that local area data is made publicly available for all regions of the UK, either separated by Pillar or with similarly informative timing information such as the date of onset of symptoms. We encourage further analyses comparing sub-epidemics ac...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


    Results from Barzooka: We found bar graphs of continuous data. We recommend replacing bar graphs with more informative graphics, as many different datasets can lead to the same bar graph. The actual data may suggest different conclusions from the summary statistics. For more information, please see Weissgerber et al (2015).


    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No funding statement was detected.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

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