Robust estimation of diagnostic rate and real incidence of COVID-19 for European policymakers.

ABSTRACT: Policymakers need clear, fast assessment of the real spread of the COVID-19 epidemic in each of their respective countries. Standard measures of the situation provided by the governments include reported positive cases and total deaths. While total deaths indicate immediately that countries like Italy and Spain had the worst situation as of mid-April, 2020, reported cases alone do not provide a complete picture of the situation. Different countries diagnose differently and present very distinctive reported case fatality ratios. Similar levels of reported incidence and mortality might hide a very different underlying pictures. Here we present a straightforward and robust estimation of the diagnostic rate in each European country. From that estimation we obtain a uniform, unbiased incidence

SUBMITTER: Catala M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7790392 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature