Articles Epidemiology Articles

Estimating the Number of Infections and the Impact of Nonpharmaceutical Interventions on COVID-19 in 11 European Countries

Published time: 30 March 2020

Authors: Seth Flaxman, Swapnil Mishra, Axel Gandy, H Juliette T Unwin, Helen Coupland, Thomas A Mellan, Harrison Zhu, Tresnia Berah, Jeffrey W Eaton, Pablo N. P. Guzman, Nora Schmit, Lucia Cilloni, Kylie E C Ainslie, Marc Baguelin, Isobel Blake, Adhiratha Boonyasiri, Olivia Boyd, Lorenzo Cattarino, Constanze Ciavarella, Laura Cooper, Zulma Cucunubá, Gina Cuomo-Dannenburg, Amy Dighe, Bimandra Djaafara, Ilaria Dorigatti, Sabine van Elsland, Rich FitzJohn, Han Fu, Katy Gaythorpe, Lily Geidelberg, Nicholas Grassly, Will Green, Timothy Hallett, Arran Hamlet, Wes Hinsley, Ben Jeffrey, David Jorgensen, Edward Knock, Daniel Laydon, Gemma Nedjati-Gilani, Pierre Nouvellet, Kris Parag, Igor Siveroni, Hayley Thompson, Robert Verity, Erik Volz, Caroline Walters, Haowei Wang, Yuanrong Wang, Oliver Watson, Peter Winskill, Xiaoyue Xi, Charles Whittaker, Patrick GT Walker, Azra Ghani, Christl A. Donnelly, Steven Riley, Lucy C Okell, Michaela A.C. Vollmer, Neil M. Ferguson, Samir Bhatt

Keywords: COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2


Abstract

In  this report, we use a semi-mechanistic Bayesian hierarchical model to attempt to infer the impact of these interventions across 11 European countries. Our methods assume that changes in the reproductive number – a measure of transmission – are an immediate response to these interventions being implemented rather than broader gradual changes in behaviour. Our model estimates these changes by calculating backwards from the deaths observed over time to estimate transmission that occurred several weeks prior, allowing for the time lag between infection and death.


Report 13 - Estimating the number of infections and the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in 11 European countries

 

Reference: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-analysis/covid-19/report-13-europe-npi-impact/

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