Consistent pattern of epidemic slowing across many geographies led to longer, flatter initial waves of the COVID-19 pandemic.

ABSTRACT: To define appropriate planning scenarios for future pandemics of respiratory pathogens, it is important to understand the initial transmission dynamics of COVID-19 during 2020. Here, we fit an age-stratified compartmental model with a flexible underlying transmission term to daily COVID-19 death data from states in the contiguous U.S. and to national and sub-national data from around the world. The daily death data of the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic was qualitatively categorized into one of four main profile types: "spring single-peak", "summer single-peak", "spring/summer two-peak" and "broad with shoulder". We estimated a reproduction number R as a function of calendar time tc and as a function of time since the first death reported in that population (local pandemic time, tp).

SUBMITTER: Ben-Nun M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9410547 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature