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Superspreading quantified from bursty epidemic trajectories.

ABSTRACT: The quantification of spreading heterogeneity in the COVID-19 epidemic is crucial as it affects the choice of efficient mitigating strategies irrespective of whether its origin is biological or social. We present a method to deduce temporal and individual variations in the basic reproduction number directly from epidemic trajectories at a community level. Using epidemic data from the 98 districts in Denmark we estimate an overdispersion factor k for COVID-19 to be about 0.11 (95% confidence interval 0.08-0.18), implying that 10 % of the infected cause between 70 % and 87 % of all infections.

SUBMITTER: Kirkegaard JB

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8677763 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Superspreading quantified from bursty epidemic trajectories.

Kirkegaard Julius B JB Sneppen Kim K

Scientific reports 20211216 1

The quantification of spreading heterogeneity in the COVID-19 epidemic is crucial as it affects the choice of efficient mitigating strategies irrespective of whether its origin is biological or social. We present a method to deduce temporal and individual variations in the basic reproduction number directly from epidemic trajectories at a community level. Using epidemic data from the 98 districts in Denmark we estimate an overdispersion factor k for COVID-19 to be about 0.11 (95% confidence inte ...[more]

PMID: 34916534

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Project description:BackgroundNovel coronaviruses have emerged and caused major epidemics and pandemics in the past 2 decades, including SARS-CoV-1, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2, which led to the current COVID-19 pandemic. These coronaviruses are marked by their potential to produce disproportionally large transmission clusters from superspreading events (SSEs). As prompt action is crucial to contain and mitigate SSEs, real-time epidemic size estimation could characterize the transmission heterogeneity and inform timely implementation of control measures.ObjectiveThis study aimed to estimate the epidemic size of SSEs to inform effective surveillance and rapid mitigation responses.MethodsWe developed a statistical framework based on back-calculation to estimate the epidemic size of ongoing coronavirus SSEs. We first validated the framework in simulated scenarios with the epidemiological characteristics of SARS, MERS, and COVID-19 SSEs. As case studies, we retrospectively applied the framework to the Amoy Gardens SARS outbreak in Hong Kong in 2003, a series of nosocomial MERS outbreaks in South Korea in 2015, and 2 COVID-19 outbreaks originating from restaurants in Hong Kong in 2020.ResultsThe accuracy and precision of the estimation of epidemic size of SSEs improved with longer observation time; larger SSE size; and more accurate prior information about the epidemiological characteristics, such as the distribution of the incubation period and the distribution of the onset-to-confirmation delay. By retrospectively applying the framework, we found that the 95% credible interval of the estimates contained the true epidemic size after 37% of cases were reported in the Amoy Garden SARS SSE in Hong Kong, 41% to 62% of cases were observed in the 3 nosocomial MERS SSEs in South Korea, and 76% to 86% of cases were confirmed in the 2 COVID-19 SSEs in Hong Kong.ConclusionsOur framework can be readily integrated into coronavirus surveillance systems to enhance situation awareness of ongoing SSEs.

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Superspreading quantified from bursty epidemic trajectories.

Publications

Superspreading quantified from bursty epidemic trajectories.

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