Deaths from undetected COVID-19 infections as a fraction of COVID-19 deaths can be used for early detection of an upcoming epidemic wave.

ABSTRACT: With countries across the world facing repeated epidemic waves, it becomes critical to monitor, mitigate and prevent subsequent waves. Common indicators like active case numbers may not be sensitive enough in the presence of systemic inefficiencies like insufficient testing or contact tracing. Test positivity rates are sensitive to testing strategies and cannot estimate the extent of undetected cases. Reproductive numbers estimated from logarithms of new incidences are inaccurate in dynamic scenarios and not sensitive enough to capture changes in efficiencies. Systemic fatigue results in lower testing, inefficient tracing and quarantining thereby precipitating the onset of the epidemic wave. We propose a novel indicator for detecting the slippage of test-trace efficiency based on the numbe

SUBMITTER: Rangayyan YM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10022783 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature