Modelling the Evolution of COVID-19 in High-Incidence European Countries and Regions: Estimated Number of Infections and Impact of Past and Future Intervention Measures
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Abstract
A previously developed mechanistic model of COVID-19 transmission has been adapted and applied here to study the evolution of the disease and the effect of intervention measures in some European countries and territories where the disease has had a major impact. A clear impact of the major intervention measures on the reproduction number (Rt) has been found in all studied countries and territories, as already suggested by the drop in the number of deaths over time. Interestingly, the impact of such major intervention measures seems to be the same in most of these countries. The model has also provided realistic estimates of the total number of infections, active cases and future outcomes. While the predictive capabilities of the model are much more uncertain before the peak of the outbreak, we could still reliably predict the evolution of the disease after a major intervention by assuming the subsequent reproduction number from the current study. A greater challenge is to foresee the long-term impact of softer intervention measures, but this model can estimate the outcome of different scenarios and help to plan changes for the implementation of control measures in a given country or region.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.09.20096735: (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: Thank you for sharing your code and data.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Two key dates are 11 May 2020, the beginning of Phase 1 for most of the regions, in which meetings of up to 10 people will be allowed, and bar terraces will be opened (with some limitations), and 22 June 2020, the proposed date for the end of Phase 3, in which some regions can go back to a certain “normality”, allowing sports and cultural shows (with some conditions), as well as national travel. We can devise different scenarios …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.09.20096735: (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: Thank you for sharing your code and data.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Two key dates are 11 May 2020, the beginning of Phase 1 for most of the regions, in which meetings of up to 10 people will be allowed, and bar terraces will be opened (with some limitations), and 22 June 2020, the proposed date for the end of Phase 3, in which some regions can go back to a certain “normality”, allowing sports and cultural shows (with some conditions), as well as national travel. We can devise different scenarios regarding the potential effect on the reproduction number due to the gradual removal of lockdown measures in these key dates. Some options are: i) no changes in Rt (very unlikely), ii) slight increment to Rt =0.71 similar to current situation in Germany (also quite unlikely, given the activities that are planned to be allowed), iii) further increment to Rt = 1.0, which implies doubling the number of patients actively transmitting the disease (this could be a likely scenario for the phase between 11 May and 22 June), or iv) much larger increment to Rt = 1.8, similar to the situation in Iceland at the beginning of the epidemic, e.g. normal activities allowed but with extensive testing and isolation of detected infections (this is a likely scenario after 22 June). All these options have been considered for Spain and La Rioja, and the results are shown in Supplemental Figure 2 (Spain), and Supplemental Figures 3,4 (La Rioja). There is a further possible scenario that we can evaluate, which is the possible return to total normality in 1 September 2020, wit...
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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