Effect of changing case definitions for COVID-19 on the epidemic curve and transmission parameters in mainland China: a modelling study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

When a new infectious disease emerges, appropriate case definitions are important for clinical diagnosis and for public health surveillance. Tracking case numbers over time is important to establish the speed of spread and the effectiveness of interventions. We aimed to assess whether changes in case definitions affected inferences on the transmission dynamics of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China.

Methods

We examined changes in the case definition for COVID-19 in mainland China during the first epidemic wave. We used exponential growth models to estimate how changes in the case definitions affected the number of cases reported each day. We then inferred how the epidemic curve would have appeared if the same case definition had been used throughout the e

SUBMITTER: Tsang TK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7173814 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature