P0: Progress to zero: A simple metric to measure COVID-19 progress by country/region

  1. Juan M Lavista Ferres
  2. Ruth B Etzioni
  3. William B. Weeks

Reviewed by

Read the full article See related articles

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

The current COVID-19 pandemic is having a devastating impact on the world. As of May 8th, 2020, more than half of the world is in lockdown, 3.6 million people have been infected, and over 250,000 of them have died. This is the first pandemic in human history that has been tracked on a daily basis across the world. Currently, progress is being tracked by a series of metrics, including new cases, deaths, and the effective reproduction number over time (R(t)), which epidemiologists have emphasized. While it is an important measure, R(t) is not observable and is dependent on the absolute number of active cases; therefore, two geographies could have a similar R(t) but be having very different experiences. Here, we propose a metric to monitor progress on addressing the COVID pandemic that we name "progress to zero" or P0. P0 corresponds to the percentage decline from a previously recorded peak level. The metric ranges from 0% (representing a geography that has not yet peaked) to 100% (representing a geography wherein 0 cases have been recorded for at least seven days). Our metric helps leaders focus on progress to a desired goal, easily can be tracked over time, can quickly identify retreat from progress, and is comparable across geographies regardless of their size.

Article activity feed

  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.21.20109298: (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: 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.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.21.20109298v1 on medRxiv