ArticlePLoS computational biology2023
Why are different estimates of the effective reproductive number so different? A case study on COVID-19 in Germany.
Article in PLoS computational biology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 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
8 citing papers in PubMed, 13 citations in OpenAlex.
- Comparing methods to estimate time-varying reproduction numbers using genomic and epidemiological data.Infectious Disease Modelling · 2026Article
- Unjustified Poisson assumptions lead to overconfident estimates of the effective reproductive number.Epidemiology and infection · 2026Article
- Estimating the effect of self-protection on transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 in Germany in 2021: a modelling study.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Daily profile of COVID-19 infections in Europe - a biophysical perspective.Biophysical reviews · 2025Review
- A Bayesian model for repeated cross-sectional epidemic prevalence survey data.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Estimating Re and overdispersion in secondary cases from the size of identical sequence clusters of SARS-CoV-2.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Jointly estimating epidemiological dynamics of Covid-19 from case and wastewater data in Aotearoa New Zealand.Communications medicine · 2024Article
- Estimating the epidemic reproduction number from temporally aggregated incidence data: A statistical modelling approach and software tool.PLoS computational biology · 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
15 authors at 8 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
The effective reproductive number Rt has taken a central role in the scientific, political, and public discussion during the COVID-19 pandemic, with numerous real-time estimates of this quantity routinely published. Disagreement between estimates can be substantial and may lead to confusion among decision-makers and the general public. In this work, we compare different estimates of the national-level effective reproductive number of COVID-19 in Germany in 2020 and 2021. We consider the agreement between estimates from the same method but published at different time points (within-method agreement) as well as retrospective agreement across eight different approaches (between-method agreement). Concerning the former, estimates from some methods are very stable over time and hardly subject to revisions, while others display considerable fluctuations. To evaluate between-method agreement, we reproduce the estimates generated by different groups using a variety of statistical approaches, standardizing analytical choices to assess how they contribute to the observed disagreement. These analytical choices include the data source, data pre-processing, assumed generation time distribution, statistical tuning parameters, and various delay distributions. We find that in practice, these auxiliary choices in the estimation of Rt may affect results at least as strongly as the selection of the statistical approach. They should thus be communicated transparently along with the estimates.
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.