Are epidemic growth rates more informative than reproduction numbers?
J R Stat Soc Ser A Stat Soc
; 2022 May 26.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1883230
ABSTRACT
statistics, often derived from simplified models of epidemic spread, inform public health policy in real time. The instantaneous reproduction number, R t , is predominant among these statistics, measuring the average ability of an infection to multiply. However, R t encodes no temporal information and is sensitive to modelling assumptions. Consequently, some have proposed the epidemic growth rate, r t , that is, the rate of change of the log-transformed case incidence, as a more temporally meaningful and model-agnostic policy guide. We examine this assertion, identifying if and when estimates of r t are more informative than those of R t . We assess their relative strengths both for learning about pathogen transmission mechanisms and for guiding public health interventions in real time.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Type of study:
Observational study
Language:
English
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
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