Estimating the reproductive number and the outbreak size of COVID-19 in Korea

Abstract

Therefore, our objective was to estimate the reproduction number (R) and evaluate the effectiveness of preventive measures. METHODS:A COVID-19 transmission model (SEIHR) was established to suit the Korean outbreak. The number of daily confirmed cases in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province (NGP), the main area of outbreak, was used. The first patient' symptom onset date in the Daegu/NGP outbreak was assumed as January 22, 2020. The R according to the start date of the effect of preventive measures was estimated. RESULTS:The estimated R in Hubei Province, China, was 4.0281, whereas the estimated initial R in Korea was 0.555, but later in Daegu/NGP, the value was between 3.472 and 3.543. When the transmission period decreases from 4-day to 2-day, the outbreak ends early, but the peak of the epidemic increases, and the total number of patients does not change greatly. It was found that, if transmission rate decreases, the outbreak ends early, and the size of the peak and the total number of patients also decreases. CONCLUSIONS:To end the COVID-19 epidemic, efforts to reduce the spread of the virus, such as social distancing and wearing masks, are absolutely crucial with the participation of the public, along with the policy of reducing the transmission period by finding and isolating patients as quickly as possible through the efforts of the quarantine authorities.

Population-Level Mortality Rates from Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) in South Korea

“…However, the complex simulation models that estimate mortality outcomes require numerous assumptions and, perhaps more importantly, are inaccessible to most. [12][13][14][15][16] In contrast, our approach utilizes public data published daily by the WHO and population-level clinical data that countries already collect. 17 Our approach can be readily applied to other countries and will directly account for differences in the age distribution of populations, which is integral for calculating an accurate mortality burden as infected older adults may be more likely to die than infected middle-aged adults from COVID-19.…”

World leaders’ usage of Twitter in response to the COVID-19 pandemic: a content analysis

“…5 It is therefore crucial that world leaders mount effective public health measures to limit human-tohuman transmission, including hand hygiene, social distancing and self-isolation. 1,6,7 Twitter may represent a powerful public health tool for world leaders to rapidly and directly communicate information on COVID-19 to citizens, in addition to more conventional media such as television, radio and newspapers. Twitter is a free microblogging social media website with 152 million registered daily users.…”

Translating transmissibility measures into recommendations for coronavirus prevention

“…Several studies indicated that the most probable basic reproductive number (R 0 ) is between two and four for the coronavirus (meaning that each infectious individual may directly generate two to four others) [1][2][3][4][5][6] . However, some estimates suggested R 0 higher than four with confidence intervals that reach values close to eight 2,7 . A reproductive number higher than one implies a progressive increase in cases, which translates into epidemics.…”