SynthesisInternational journal of environmental research and public health2022
Reliability of Early Estimates of the Basic Reproduction Number of COVID-19: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
Synthesis in International journal of environmental research and public health, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- The Role of Traditional Chinese Medicine in COVID-19 Treatment: Integrating Ancient Wisdom with Modern Medicine.Current medicinal chemistry · 2026Review
- Comparison of contact tracing methods: A modelling study.Infectious Disease Modelling · 2025Article
- Transmission Dynamics of Mpox in Peru During the 2022 Outbreak.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2025Article
- The effect of COVID-19 vaccination on change in contact and implications for transmission.Epidemics · 2025Article
- Advancements in Defining and Estimating the Reproduction Number in Infectious Disease Epidemiology.China CDC weekly · 2023Article
- Study of optimal vaccination strategies for early COVID-19 pandemic using an age-structured mathematical model: A case study of the USA.Mathematical biosciences and engineering : MBE · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveThis systematic review estimated the pooled R0 for early COVID-19 outbreaks and identified the impact of study-related factors such as methods, study location and study period on the estimated R0.
methodsWe searched electronic databases for human studies published in English between 1 December 2019 and 30 September 2020 with no restriction on country/region. Two investigators independently performed the data extraction of the studies selected for inclusion during full-text screening. The primary outcome, R0, was analysed by random-effects meta-analysis using the restricted maximum likelihood method.
resultsWe identified 26,425 studies through our search and included 151 articles in the systematic review, among which 81 were included in the meta-analysis. The estimates of R0 from studies included in the meta-analysis ranged from 0.4 to 12.58. The pooled R0 for COVID-19 was estimated to be 2.66 (95% CI, 2.41-2.94). The results showed heterogeneity among studies and strong evidence of a small-study effect.
conclusionsThe high heterogeneity in studies makes the use of the R0 for basic epidemic planning difficult and presents a huge problem for risk assessment and data synthesis. Consensus on the use of R0 for outbreak assessment is needed, and its use for assessing epidemic risk is not recommended.
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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.