Estimating event ban effects on COVID-19 outbreak in Japan
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Abstract
Background
Before Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo, whether an audience shall be allowed or not has been a subject of concern in Japan as of early June, 2021. Object: We evaluated effects of professional baseball games with audiences as an example of the large sports events, on COVID-19 infectiousness.
Method
We regressed the effective reproduction number R( t ) on a dummy variable for professional baseball games with audiences as along with temperature, humidity, mobility, and countermeasures. We examined two study periods: those including and excluding before initiation of the games in 2020.
Results
Estimation results indicate that the period with audiences exhibited significantly lower infectiousness than when audiences were excluded before initiation of the games with audience attendance. However, audiences were found to have a negative but insignificant effect when compared to the period before initiation of the attended games.
Discussion and Conclusion
This study found no clear evidence indicating that big sports events with audiences raise the COVID-19 infectiousness.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.12.29.20248977: (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: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:The present study has some limitations. First, R(t) represents infectiousness, but not in the number of patients or cases of mortality. One must be reminded that temperature and mobility are associated with infectiousness, but the result does not reflect association with the number of patients. To approach such an association, a formal …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.12.29.20248977: (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: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:The present study has some limitations. First, R(t) represents infectiousness, but not in the number of patients or cases of mortality. One must be reminded that temperature and mobility are associated with infectiousness, but the result does not reflect association with the number of patients. To approach such an association, a formal mathematical model incorporating temperature and mobility must be developed. Producing that model is anticipated as a challenge for future research. Secondly, as described above, the second Emergency status is continuing as of February 10 at lease in Tokyo or Osaka. Moreover, R(t) was not fixed in the last 31 days. Thirdly, we examined this problem only for the entirety of Japan. Because Apple Inc. and the Japan Meteorological Agency provide information by prefecture, the data can be extended to affected prefectures such as Tokyo, Osaka, and Hokkaido. Fourthly, we do not know whether our results can be extended to other countries. That effort remains as a subject for future research.
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.
- No funding statement was detected.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.12.29.20248977: (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: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
The present study has some limitations. First, R(t) represents infectiousness, but not in the number of patients or cases of mortality. Actually, the third wave probably did not reach its peak by December 25, but the number …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.12.29.20248977: (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: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
The present study has some limitations. First, R(t) represents infectiousness, but not in the number of patients or cases of mortality. Actually, the third wave probably did not reach its peak by December 25, but the number of patients was already higher than in the prior two waves. One must be reminded that temperature and mobility are associated with infectiousness, but the result does not reflect association with the number of patients. To approach the association, a formal mathematical model incorporating temperature and mobility is needed. Producing that model is anticipated as a challenge for future research. Secondly, we examined this problem only for the entirety of Japan. Because Apple Inc. and the Japan Meteorological Agency provide information by prefecture, the data can be extended to affected prefectures such as Tokyo, Osaka, and Hokkaido. Thirdly, we do not know whether our result can be extended other countries. That effort remains as a future research objective.
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.
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.
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