ArticleJournal of the Royal Society, Interface2020
Reconciling early-outbreak estimates of the basic reproductive number and its uncertainty: framework and applications to the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak.
Article in Journal of the Royal Society, Interface, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 79 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
79 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Transmissibility and pathogenicity of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2: A systematic review and meta-analysis of secondary attack rate and asymptomatic infection.Journal of infection and public health · 2022Pooled it
- Estimate of the Basic Reproduction Number for COVID-19: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Journal of preventive medicine and public health = Yebang Uihakhoe chi · 2020Pooled it
- Real-time spatiotemporal tracking of infectious outbreaks in confined environments with a host-pathogen agent-based system.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Evolutionary and epidemic dynamics of COVID-19 in Germany exemplified by three Bayesian phylodynamic case studies.Bioinformatics and biology insights · 2025Article
- Why are different estimates of the effective reproductive number so different? A case study on COVID-19 in Germany.PLoS computational biology · 2023Article
- Disentangling the role of virus infectiousness and awareness-based human behavior during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in the European Union.Applied mathematical modelling · 2023Article
- Differences in COVID-19 cyclicity and predictability among U.S. counties and states reflect the effectiveness of protective measures.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Delay-differential SEIR modeling for improved modelling of infection dynamics.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Charting the spatial dynamics of early SARS-CoV-2 transmission in Washington state.PLoS computational biology · 2023Article
- Inferring the differences in incubation-period and generation-interval distributions of the Delta and Omicron variants of SARS-CoV-2.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Heterogeneity is a key factor describing the initial outbreak of COVID-19.Applied mathematical modelling · 2023Article
- Intermediate levels of asymptomatic transmission can lead to the highest epidemic fatalities.PNAS nexus · 2023Article
- Uncertainty and error in SARS-CoV-2 epidemiological parameters inferred from population-level epidemic models.Journal of theoretical biology · 2023Article
- Modeling local coronavirus outbreaks.European journal of operational research · 2023Review
- Prioritizing interventions for preventing COVID-19 outbreaks in military basic training.PLoS computational biology · 2022Article
- Article
- The importance of the generation interval in investigating dynamics and control of new SARS-CoV-2 variants.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2022Article
- Face masking and COVID-19: potential effects of variolation on transmission dynamics.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2022Article
- The changing epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2022Review
- Cross-sectional cycle threshold values reflect epidemic dynamics of COVID-19 in Madagascar.Epidemics · 2022Article
19 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
A novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) emerged as a global threat in December 2019. As the epidemic progresses, disease modellers continue to focus on estimating the basic reproductive number [Formula: see text]-the average number of secondary cases caused by a primary case in an otherwise susceptible population. The modelling approaches and resulting estimates of [Formula: see text] during the beginning of the outbreak vary widely, despite relying on similar data sources. Here, we present a statistical framework for comparing and combining different estimates of [Formula: see text] across a wide range of models by decomposing the basic reproductive number into three key quantities: the exponential growth rate, the mean generation interval and the generation-interval dispersion. We apply our framework to early estimates of [Formula: see text] for the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, showing that many [Formula: see text] estimates are overly confident. Our results emphasize the importance of propagating uncertainties in all components of [Formula: see text], including the shape of the generation-interval distribution, in efforts to estimate [Formula: see text] at the outset of an epidemic.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.