Cargando…
Oscillatory Dynamics in Infectivity and Death Rates of COVID-19
The analysis of systematically collected data for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infectivity and death rates has revealed, in many countries around the world, a typical oscillatory pattern with a 7-day (circaseptan) period. Additionally, in some countries, 3.5-day (hemicircaseptan) and 14-day p...
Autores principales: | , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
American Society for Microbiology
2020
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7438025/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32817387 http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/mSystems.00700-20 |
_version_ | 1783572729692160000 |
---|---|
author | Pavlíček, Tomáš Rehak, Pavel Král, Petr |
author_facet | Pavlíček, Tomáš Rehak, Pavel Král, Petr |
author_sort | Pavlíček, Tomáš |
collection | PubMed |
description | The analysis of systematically collected data for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infectivity and death rates has revealed, in many countries around the world, a typical oscillatory pattern with a 7-day (circaseptan) period. Additionally, in some countries, 3.5-day (hemicircaseptan) and 14-day periodicities have also been observed. Interestingly, the 7-day infectivity and death rate oscillations are almost in phase, showing local maxima on Thursdays/Fridays and local minima on Sundays/Mondays. These observations are in stark contrast to a known pattern correlating the death rate with the reduced medical staff in hospitals on the weekends. While we cannot exclude the possibility that a significant portion of the observed oscillations is associated with the reporting of the individual cases, other reasons might contribute at least partly to these data. One possible hypothesis addressing these observations is that they reflect gradually increasing stress with the progressing week, which can trigger the higher death rates on Thursdays/Fridays. Moreover, assuming the weekends provide the likely time for new infections, the maximum number of new cases might fall, again, on Thursdays/Fridays. These observations deserve further study to provide a better understanding of COVID-19 dynamics. IMPORTANCE The infectivity and death rates for COVID-19 have been observed in many countries around the world as well as in the collective data of the whole world. These oscillations show distinct circaseptan periodicity, which could be associated with numerous biological reasons as well as with improper reporting of the data collected. Since very different results are observed in different countries and even continents, such as Sweden (very significant oscillations) or India (almost no oscillations), these data provide a very important message about different conditions under which the disease is spread or is reported, which, in turn, could serve as guidance tools in future epidemics. It is necessary that follow-up studies track the observed differences and fully reliably address their origins. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7438025 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | American Society for Microbiology |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-74380252020-08-24 Oscillatory Dynamics in Infectivity and Death Rates of COVID-19 Pavlíček, Tomáš Rehak, Pavel Král, Petr mSystems Research Article The analysis of systematically collected data for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infectivity and death rates has revealed, in many countries around the world, a typical oscillatory pattern with a 7-day (circaseptan) period. Additionally, in some countries, 3.5-day (hemicircaseptan) and 14-day periodicities have also been observed. Interestingly, the 7-day infectivity and death rate oscillations are almost in phase, showing local maxima on Thursdays/Fridays and local minima on Sundays/Mondays. These observations are in stark contrast to a known pattern correlating the death rate with the reduced medical staff in hospitals on the weekends. While we cannot exclude the possibility that a significant portion of the observed oscillations is associated with the reporting of the individual cases, other reasons might contribute at least partly to these data. One possible hypothesis addressing these observations is that they reflect gradually increasing stress with the progressing week, which can trigger the higher death rates on Thursdays/Fridays. Moreover, assuming the weekends provide the likely time for new infections, the maximum number of new cases might fall, again, on Thursdays/Fridays. These observations deserve further study to provide a better understanding of COVID-19 dynamics. IMPORTANCE The infectivity and death rates for COVID-19 have been observed in many countries around the world as well as in the collective data of the whole world. These oscillations show distinct circaseptan periodicity, which could be associated with numerous biological reasons as well as with improper reporting of the data collected. Since very different results are observed in different countries and even continents, such as Sweden (very significant oscillations) or India (almost no oscillations), these data provide a very important message about different conditions under which the disease is spread or is reported, which, in turn, could serve as guidance tools in future epidemics. It is necessary that follow-up studies track the observed differences and fully reliably address their origins. American Society for Microbiology 2020-08-18 /pmc/articles/PMC7438025/ /pubmed/32817387 http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/mSystems.00700-20 Text en Copyright © 2020 Pavlíček et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Research Article Pavlíček, Tomáš Rehak, Pavel Král, Petr Oscillatory Dynamics in Infectivity and Death Rates of COVID-19 |
title | Oscillatory Dynamics in Infectivity and Death Rates of COVID-19 |
title_full | Oscillatory Dynamics in Infectivity and Death Rates of COVID-19 |
title_fullStr | Oscillatory Dynamics in Infectivity and Death Rates of COVID-19 |
title_full_unstemmed | Oscillatory Dynamics in Infectivity and Death Rates of COVID-19 |
title_short | Oscillatory Dynamics in Infectivity and Death Rates of COVID-19 |
title_sort | oscillatory dynamics in infectivity and death rates of covid-19 |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7438025/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32817387 http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/mSystems.00700-20 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT pavlicektomas oscillatorydynamicsininfectivityanddeathratesofcovid19 AT rehakpavel oscillatorydynamicsininfectivityanddeathratesofcovid19 AT kralpetr oscillatorydynamicsininfectivityanddeathratesofcovid19 |