Cargando…

Robust estimates of the true (population) infection rate for COVID-19: a backcasting approach

Differences in COVID-19 testing and tracing across countries, as well as changes in testing within each country over time, make it difficult to estimate the true (population) infection rate based on the confirmed number of cases obtained through RNA viral testing. We applied a backcasting approach t...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Phipps, Steven J., Grafton, R. Quentin, Kompas, Tom
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7735365/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33391791
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.200909
_version_ 1783622632213577728
author Phipps, Steven J.
Grafton, R. Quentin
Kompas, Tom
author_facet Phipps, Steven J.
Grafton, R. Quentin
Kompas, Tom
author_sort Phipps, Steven J.
collection PubMed
description Differences in COVID-19 testing and tracing across countries, as well as changes in testing within each country over time, make it difficult to estimate the true (population) infection rate based on the confirmed number of cases obtained through RNA viral testing. We applied a backcasting approach to estimate a distribution for the true (population) cumulative number of infections (infected and recovered) for 15 developed countries. Our sample comprised countries with similar levels of medical care and with populations that have similar age distributions. Monte Carlo methods were used to robustly sample parameter uncertainty. We found a strong and statistically significant negative relationship between the proportion of the population who test positive and the implied true detection rate. Despite an overall improvement in detection rates as the pandemic has progressed, our estimates showed that, as at 31 August 2020, the true number of people to have been infected across our sample of 15 countries was 6.2 (95% CI: 4.3–10.9) times greater than the reported number of cases. In individual countries, the true number of cases exceeded the reported figure by factors that range from 2.6 (95% CI: 1.8–4.5) for South Korea to 17.5 (95% CI: 12.2–30.7) for Italy.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7735365
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2020
publisher The Royal Society
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-77353652020-12-31 Robust estimates of the true (population) infection rate for COVID-19: a backcasting approach Phipps, Steven J. Grafton, R. Quentin Kompas, Tom R Soc Open Sci Biochemistry, Cellular and Molecular Biology Differences in COVID-19 testing and tracing across countries, as well as changes in testing within each country over time, make it difficult to estimate the true (population) infection rate based on the confirmed number of cases obtained through RNA viral testing. We applied a backcasting approach to estimate a distribution for the true (population) cumulative number of infections (infected and recovered) for 15 developed countries. Our sample comprised countries with similar levels of medical care and with populations that have similar age distributions. Monte Carlo methods were used to robustly sample parameter uncertainty. We found a strong and statistically significant negative relationship between the proportion of the population who test positive and the implied true detection rate. Despite an overall improvement in detection rates as the pandemic has progressed, our estimates showed that, as at 31 August 2020, the true number of people to have been infected across our sample of 15 countries was 6.2 (95% CI: 4.3–10.9) times greater than the reported number of cases. In individual countries, the true number of cases exceeded the reported figure by factors that range from 2.6 (95% CI: 1.8–4.5) for South Korea to 17.5 (95% CI: 12.2–30.7) for Italy. The Royal Society 2020-11-18 /pmc/articles/PMC7735365/ /pubmed/33391791 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.200909 Text en © 2020 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Biochemistry, Cellular and Molecular Biology
Phipps, Steven J.
Grafton, R. Quentin
Kompas, Tom
Robust estimates of the true (population) infection rate for COVID-19: a backcasting approach
title Robust estimates of the true (population) infection rate for COVID-19: a backcasting approach
title_full Robust estimates of the true (population) infection rate for COVID-19: a backcasting approach
title_fullStr Robust estimates of the true (population) infection rate for COVID-19: a backcasting approach
title_full_unstemmed Robust estimates of the true (population) infection rate for COVID-19: a backcasting approach
title_short Robust estimates of the true (population) infection rate for COVID-19: a backcasting approach
title_sort robust estimates of the true (population) infection rate for covid-19: a backcasting approach
topic Biochemistry, Cellular and Molecular Biology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7735365/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33391791
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.200909
work_keys_str_mv AT phippsstevenj robustestimatesofthetruepopulationinfectionrateforcovid19abackcastingapproach
AT graftonrquentin robustestimatesofthetruepopulationinfectionrateforcovid19abackcastingapproach
AT kompastom robustestimatesofthetruepopulationinfectionrateforcovid19abackcastingapproach