Scoping review and meta-analysis of COVID-19 epidemiological parameters for modeling from early Asian studies

Abstract

Retrospective epidemiological models are powerful tools to understand its transmission dynamics and to assess the efficacy of different control measures. This study summarises key epidemiological parameters of COVID-19 for retrospective mathematical and clinical modeling. A review of scientific papers and preprints published in English between 1 January and 15 April 2020 in PubMed, MedRxiv and BioRxiv was performed to obtain epidemiological parameters of the initial stage of COVID-19 pandemic in Asia. After excluding articles with unacceptable risks of bias and those that remained as preprints as of 15 November 2021, meta-analyses were performed to derive summary effect estimates from the data collected using the statistical software R. Out of 4,893 articles identified, 88 provided data for 22 parameters for the overall population and 7 specifically for children. Meta-analyses were conducted considering time period as a categorical moderator when it was statistically significant. The results obtained are essential for building more reliable models to help clinicians and policymakers improve their knowledge on COVID-19 and apply it in future decisions.