Epidemiology of Reopening in the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States, Europe and Asia

  1. Weiqi Zhang
  2. Alina Oltean
  3. Scott Nichols
  4. Fuad Odeh
  5. Fei Zhong

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Abstract

Since the discovery of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), COVID-19 has become a global healthcare and economic crisis. The United States (US) and Europe exhibited wide impacts from the virus with more than six million cases by the time of our analysis. To inhibit spread, stay-at-home orders and other non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) were instituted. Beginning late April 2020, some US states, European, and Asian countries lifted restrictions and started the reopening phases. In this study, the changes of confirmed cases, hospitalizations, and deaths were analyzed after reopening for 11 countries and 40 US states using an interrupted time series analysis. Additionally, the distribution of these categories was further analyzed by age due to the known increased risk in elderly patients. Reopening had varied effects on COVID-19 cases depending on the region. Recent increases in cases did not fully translate into increased deaths. Eight countries had increased cases after reopening while only two countries showed the same trend in deaths. In the US, 30 states had observed increases in cases while only seven observed increased deaths. In addition, we found that states with later reopening dates were more likely to have significant decreases in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. Furthermore, age distributions through time were analyzed in relation to COVID-19 in the US. Younger age groups typically had an increased share of cases after reopening.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.08.05.20168757: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot 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.

    About SciScore

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.08.05.20168757v1 on medRxiv