ArticlePLoS computational biology2020
Estimation of country-level basic reproductive ratios for novel Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19) using synthetic contact matrices.
Article in PLoS computational biology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 60 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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60 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 132 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Country's value priorities in health crisis: How dominant societal motivations shape COVID-19 severity.SSM - population health · 2023Article
- Investigation of airborne spread of COVID-19 using a hybrid agent-based model: a case study of the UK.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- Molecular Study ofArchives of Razi Institute · 2023Article
- Characterizing the role of human behavior in the effectiveness of contact-tracing applications.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Why COVID-19 modelling of progression and prevention fails to translate to the real-world.Advances in biological regulation · 2022Article
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- The CP-ABM approach for modelling COVID-19 infection dynamics and quantifying the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions.Pattern recognition · 2022Article
- Structural genetics of circulating variants affecting the SARS-CoV-2 spike/human ACE2 complex.Journal of biomolecular structure & dynamics · 2022Article
- A computational framework for modelling infectious disease policy based on age and household structure with applications to the COVID-19 pandemic.PLoS computational biology · 2022Article
- Association of national and regional lockdowns with COVID-19 infection rates in Pune, India.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Assessment of the Benefits of Targeted Interventions for Pandemic Control in China Based on Machine Learning Method and Web Service for COVID-19 Policy Simulation.Biomedical and environmental sciences : BES · 2022Article
- Individual variation in susceptibility or exposure to SARS-CoV-2 lowers the herd immunity threshold.Journal of theoretical biology · 2022Article
- Optimal intervention strategies to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic effects.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions during COVID-19 pandemic on pertussis, scarlet fever and hand-foot-mouth disease in China.The Journal of infection · 2022Article
- The "Elastic Perspective" of SARS-CoV-2 Infection and the Role of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Factors.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Review
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The 2019-2020 pandemic of atypical pneumonia (COVID-19) caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2 has spread globally and has the potential to infect large numbers of people in every country. Estimating the country-specific basic reproductive ratio is a vital first step in public-health planning. The basic reproductive ratio (R0) is determined by both the nature of pathogen and the network of human contacts through which the disease can spread, which is itself dependent on population age structure and household composition. Here we introduce a transmission model combining age-stratified contact frequencies with age-dependent susceptibility, probability of clinical symptoms, and transmission from asymptomatic (or mild) cases, which we use to estimate the country-specific basic reproductive ratio of COVID-19 for 152 countries. Using early outbreak data from China and a synthetic contact matrix, we estimate an age-stratified transmission structure which can then be extrapolated to 151 other countries for which synthetic contact matrices also exist. This defines a set of country-specific transmission structures from which we can calculate the basic reproductive ratio for each country. Our predicted R0 is critically sensitive to the intensity of transmission from asymptomatic cases; with low asymptomatic transmission the highest values are predicted across Eastern Europe and Japan and the lowest across Africa, Central America and South-Western Asia. This pattern is largely driven by the ratio of children to older adults in each country and the observed propensity of clinical cases in the elderly. If asymptomatic cases have comparable transmission to detected cases, the pattern is reversed. Our results demonstrate the importance of age-specific heterogeneities going beyond contact structure to the spread of COVID-19. These heterogeneities give COVID-19 the capacity to spread particularly quickly in countries with older populations, and that intensive control measures are likely to be necessary to impede its progress in these countries.
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