Computing the daily reproduction number of COVID-19 by inverting the renewal equation using a variational technique

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Abstract

Based on a signal-processing approach, we propose a method to compute the reproduction number R t , the transmission potential of an epidemic over time. R t is estimated by minimizing a functional that enforces: 1) the ability to produce an incidence curve i t corrected of the weekly periodic bias produced by the “weekend effect,” obtained from R t through a renewal equation; and 2) the regularity of R t . A good agreement is found between our R t estimate and the one provided by the currently accepted method, EpiEstim, except that our method predicts R t several days closer to present. We provide the mathematical arguments for this shift.

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.08.01.20165142: (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: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


    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.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

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