Benchmarking the Covid-19 pandemic across countries and states in the USA under heterogeneous testing.

ABSTRACT: Scientists and policymakers need to compare the incidence of Covid-19 across territories or periods with various levels of testing. Benchmarking based on the increase in total cases or case fatality rates is one way of comparing the evolution of the pandemic across countries or territories and could inform policy decisions about strategies to control coronavirus transmission. However, comparing cases and fatality rates across regions is challenging due to heterogeneity in testing and health systems. We show two complementary ways of benchmarking across territories and in time. First, we used multivariate regressions to estimate the test-elasticity of Covid-19 case incidence. Cases grow less than proportionally with testing when assessing weekly changes or looking across states in the USA.

SUBMITTER: Asahi K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8313551 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature