Improved inference of time-varying reproduction numbers during infectious disease outbreaks.

ABSTRACT: Accurate estimation of the parameters characterising infectious disease transmission is vital for optimising control interventions during epidemics. A valuable metric for assessing the current threat posed by an outbreak is the time-dependent reproduction number, i.e. the expected number of secondary cases caused by each infected individual. This quantity can be estimated using data on the numbers of observed new cases at successive times during an epidemic and the distribution of the serial interval (the time between symptomatic cases in a transmission chain). Some methods for estimating the reproduction number rely on pre-existing estimates of the serial interval distribution and assume that the entire outbreak is driven by local transmission. Here we show that accurate inference of curr

SUBMITTER: Thompson RN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7105007 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature