An Analysis of Outbreak Dynamics and Intervention Effects for COVID-19 Transmission in Europe

  1. Wei Wang

Reviewed by

Read the full article

Discuss this preprint

Start a discussion What are Sciety discussions?

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

As of March 13, 2020, Europe became the center of COVID-19 pandemic. In order to prevent further spread and slow down the increase in confirmed cases and deaths, many countries in European Union have taken some interventions since mid-March. In this study, a metapopulation model was used to model the outbreak of COVID-19 in Europe and the effectiveness of these interventions were also estimated. The findings suggested that many countries successfully kept the reproduction number R t less than 1 (e.g., Belgium, Germany, Spain, and France) while other countries exhibited R t greater than 1 (e.g., United Kingdom, Cyprus). Based on the assumed reopen strategy, this study also revealed that a 2-week delay in response predicted approximately 2,000 deaths and 200,000 cases (daily peak value), while a 3-week delay predicted approximately 5,000 deaths and 600,000 cases (daily peak value). Therefore, a quick response upon signs of a re-emerging pandemic in the world is highly imperative to mitigate potential loss of life and to keep transmission of Covid-19 under control.

Article activity feed

  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.21.20158873: (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.

    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 10.1101/2020.07.21.20158873 on medRxiv