Estimation of the Ascertainment Bias in Covid Case Detection During the Omicron Wave

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Abstract

Covid cases in the general population have been historically underreported due to a variety of reasons including limited access to PCR testing at the start of the pandemic, lack of nation-wide surveillance testing, and discouraged testing unless symptomatic. Concerns about underreporting have increased during the Omicron surge due to the expanded use of at-home rapid tests which are not required to be officially reported. For the state of Illinois, we have found that reported cases constituted only 50%-70% of the actual cases during the pre-Omicron waves (August 2020-December 2021). During the first Omicron (BA1) wave, this fraction dropped to 20-29% (i.e., only 1 in 4 to 1 in 5 cases are reported). During the ongoing second Omicron (BA2) surge, this fraction has further decreased to 12-18% (i.e., only 1 in 6 to 1 in 8 cases are reported). These estimates have important implications on understanding the extent of the Omicron surge at the state and national levels.

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2022.04.22.22274198: (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.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.


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