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Covid-19 Transmission Trajectories–Monitoring the Pandemic in the Worldwide Context

The Covid-19 pandemic is developing worldwide with common dynamics but also with marked differences between regions and countries. These are not completely understood, but presumably, provide a clue to find ways to mitigate epidemics until strategies leading to its eradication become available. We d...

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Autores principales: Loeffler-Wirth, Henry, Schmidt, Maria, Binder, Hans
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7412525/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32698418
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/v12070777
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author Loeffler-Wirth, Henry
Schmidt, Maria
Binder, Hans
author_facet Loeffler-Wirth, Henry
Schmidt, Maria
Binder, Hans
author_sort Loeffler-Wirth, Henry
collection PubMed
description The Covid-19 pandemic is developing worldwide with common dynamics but also with marked differences between regions and countries. These are not completely understood, but presumably, provide a clue to find ways to mitigate epidemics until strategies leading to its eradication become available. We describe an iteractive monitoring tool available in the internet. It enables inspection of the dynamic state of the epidemic in 187 countries using trajectories that visualize the transmission and removal rates of the epidemic and in this way bridge epi-curve tracking with modelling approaches. Examples were provided which characterize state of epidemic in different regions of the world in terms of fast and slow growing and decaying regimes and estimate associated rate factors. The basic spread of the disease is associated with transmission between two individuals every two-three days on the average. Non-pharmaceutical interventions decrease this value to up to ten days, whereas ‘complete lock down’ measures are required to stop the epidemic. Comparison of trajectories revealed marked differences between the countries regarding efficiency of measures taken against the epidemic. Trajectories also reveal marked country-specific recovery and death rate dynamics. The results presented refer to the pandemic state in May to July 2020 and can serve as ‘working instruction’ for timely monitoring using the interactive monitoring tool as a sort of ‘seismometer’ for the evaluation of the state of epidemic, e.g., the possible effect of measures taken in both, lock-down and lock-up directions. Comparison of trajectories between countries and regions will support developing hypotheses and models to better understand regional differences of dynamics of Covid-19.
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spelling pubmed-74125252020-08-26 Covid-19 Transmission Trajectories–Monitoring the Pandemic in the Worldwide Context Loeffler-Wirth, Henry Schmidt, Maria Binder, Hans Viruses Article The Covid-19 pandemic is developing worldwide with common dynamics but also with marked differences between regions and countries. These are not completely understood, but presumably, provide a clue to find ways to mitigate epidemics until strategies leading to its eradication become available. We describe an iteractive monitoring tool available in the internet. It enables inspection of the dynamic state of the epidemic in 187 countries using trajectories that visualize the transmission and removal rates of the epidemic and in this way bridge epi-curve tracking with modelling approaches. Examples were provided which characterize state of epidemic in different regions of the world in terms of fast and slow growing and decaying regimes and estimate associated rate factors. The basic spread of the disease is associated with transmission between two individuals every two-three days on the average. Non-pharmaceutical interventions decrease this value to up to ten days, whereas ‘complete lock down’ measures are required to stop the epidemic. Comparison of trajectories revealed marked differences between the countries regarding efficiency of measures taken against the epidemic. Trajectories also reveal marked country-specific recovery and death rate dynamics. The results presented refer to the pandemic state in May to July 2020 and can serve as ‘working instruction’ for timely monitoring using the interactive monitoring tool as a sort of ‘seismometer’ for the evaluation of the state of epidemic, e.g., the possible effect of measures taken in both, lock-down and lock-up directions. Comparison of trajectories between countries and regions will support developing hypotheses and models to better understand regional differences of dynamics of Covid-19. MDPI 2020-07-20 /pmc/articles/PMC7412525/ /pubmed/32698418 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/v12070777 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Loeffler-Wirth, Henry
Schmidt, Maria
Binder, Hans
Covid-19 Transmission Trajectories–Monitoring the Pandemic in the Worldwide Context
title Covid-19 Transmission Trajectories–Monitoring the Pandemic in the Worldwide Context
title_full Covid-19 Transmission Trajectories–Monitoring the Pandemic in the Worldwide Context
title_fullStr Covid-19 Transmission Trajectories–Monitoring the Pandemic in the Worldwide Context
title_full_unstemmed Covid-19 Transmission Trajectories–Monitoring the Pandemic in the Worldwide Context
title_short Covid-19 Transmission Trajectories–Monitoring the Pandemic in the Worldwide Context
title_sort covid-19 transmission trajectories–monitoring the pandemic in the worldwide context
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7412525/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32698418
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/v12070777
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