Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34607036›Full record

ArticleComputer methods and programs in biomedicine2021

COVID-19: Estimation of the transmission dynamics in Spain using a stochastic simulator and black-box optimization techniques.

Marcos Matabuena, Pablo Rodríguez-Mier, Carlos García-Meixide, Victor Leborán

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Article in Computer methods and programs in biomedicine, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

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2citing papers in PubMed
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3 · Its place in the literature

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2 citing papers in PubMed.

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Marcos MatabuenaCiTIUS (Centro Singular de Investigación en Tecnoloxías Intelixentes), Universidade de Santiago of Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Electronic address: marcos.matabuena@usc.es.
Pablo Rodríguez-MierToxalim (Research Centre in Food Toxicology), Université de Toulouse, INRAE, ENVT, INP-Purpan, UPS, Toulouse 31300, France.
Carlos García-MeixideUniversidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
Victor LeboránCiTIUS (Centro Singular de Investigación en Tecnoloxías Intelixentes), Universidade de Santiago of Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND

objectivesEpidemiological models of epidemic spread are an essential tool for optimizing decision-making. The current literature is very extensive and covers a wide variety of deterministic and stochastic models. However, with the increase in computing resources, new, more general, and flexible procedures based on simulation models can assess the effectiveness of measures and quantify the current state of the epidemic. This paper illustrates the potential of this approach to build a new dynamic probabilistic model to estimate the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infections in different compartments.

methodsWe propose a new probabilistic model in which, for the first time in the epidemic literature, parameter learning is carried out using gradient-free stochastic black-box optimization techniques simulating multiple trajectories of the infection dynamics in a general way, solving an inverse problem that is defined employing the daily information from mortality records.

resultsAfter the application of the new proposal in Spain in the first and successive waves, the result of the model confirms the accuracy to estimate the seroprevalence and allows us to know the real dynamics of the pandemic a posteriori to assess the impact of epidemiological measures by the Spanish government and to plan more efficiently the subsequent decisions with the prior knowledge obtained.

conclusionsThe model results allow us to estimate the daily patterns of COVID-19 infections in Spain retrospectively and examine the population's exposure to the virus dynamically in contrast to seroprevalence surveys. Furthermore, given the flexibility of our simulation framework, we can model situations -even using non-parametric distributions between the different compartments in the model- that other models in the existing literature cannot. Our general optimization strategy remains valid in these cases, and we can easily create other non-standard simulation epidemic models that incorporate more complex and dynamic structures.

Indexed as

COVID-19HumansPandemicsRetrospective StudiesSARS-CoV-2Seroepidemiologic StudiesSpainComputing scienceCOVID-19Epidemic modelsEvolutionary computationsStochastic processes

Identifiers

PMID34607036
PMCPMC8418989

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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.