Spectral analysis of the daily evolution of deaths due to Covid-19 in France and in the world shows a weekend effect: myth or reality?
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Abstract
Background
The weekend effect has been extensively observed for different diseases and countries and recognized as a fact but without obvious causes.
Objectives
In this paper we first aimed at investigating the existence of a periodicity in the death count due to Covid-19, and second, at opening the discussion concerning the reality of this effect in this particular context.
Methods
Daily statistics of deaths due to the Covid-19 pandemic were subjected to a discrete Fourier transform spectral analysis for France and the world, over the periods from March 29 to May 16, 2020 and from January 22 to May 18, 2020 respectively.
Results
In both cases, a frequency peak of one harmonic corresponding to a period of 7.11 days was observed for France and the world. In France, this weekly frequency corresponds to a decrease in deaths every Sunday, whereas for the world the systematic decrease is shifted on average by 1.5 days and corresponds to Saturday or Friday.
Conclusion
At the world scale and for the epidemic period we confirm the existence of a consecutive weekend effect in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.23.20135442: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. 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 …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.23.20135442: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. 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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