Fast initial Covid-19 response means greater caution may be needed later

  1. Joël J.-M. Hirschi

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Abstract

Background

As the Covid-19 pandemic unfolds it is becoming increasingly clear that the strength of the first wave of the epidemic varies significantly between countries. In this study a simple numerical model is used to illustrate the impact the timing of initial measures against Covid-19 has on the first wave of infection and possible implications this may have for the measures taken as the first wave is ebbing. The results highlight that delaying measures by 10 days is sufficient to largely account for the differences seen between countries such as the UK and Germany for the first wave of infections. A pronounced first wave means that a larger fraction of the total population will have been infected and is therefore likely to display immunity. Even if this fraction is far below the level needed for “herd immunity” the effective reproduction factor R e is decreased compared to a population that had no prior exposure to the virus. Even a small reduction in R e can have major influence on the evolution of the epidemic after the first wave of infections. A large first wave means the resulting value for R e will be lower than if the first wave was mild. Without either vaccine or effective treatment countries that experienced a small first wave should therefore relax measures at a slower pace than countries where the first wave was strong.

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    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.26.20112680: (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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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.26.20112680v1 on medRxiv