Overlapping timescales obscure early warning signals of the second COVID-19 wave.

ABSTRACT: Early warning indicators based on critical slowing down have been suggested as a model-independent and low-cost tool to anticipate the (re)emergence of infectious diseases. We studied whether such indicators could reliably have anticipated the second COVID-19 wave in European countries. Contrary to theoretical predictions, we found that characteristic early warning indicators generally decreased rather than increased prior to the second wave. A model explains this unexpected finding as a result of transient dynamics and the multiple timescales of relaxation during a non-stationary epidemic. Particularly, if an epidemic that seems initially contained after a first wave does not fully settle to its new quasi-equilibrium prior to changing circumstances or conditions that force a

SUBMITTER: Dablander F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8825995 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature