Increasing situational awareness through nowcasting of the reproduction number

• Main Authors: Andrea Bizzotto (Author), Giorgio Guzzetta (Author), Valentina Marziano (Author), Martina Del Manso (Author), Alberto Mateo Urdiales (Author), Daniele Petrone (Author), Andrea Cannone (Author), Chiara Sacco (Author), Piero Poletti (Author), Mattia Manica (Author), Agnese Zardini (Author), Filippo Trentini (Author), Massimo Fabiani (Author), Antonino Bella (Author), Flavia Riccardo (Author), Patrizio Pezzotti (Author), Marco Ajelli (Author), Stefano Merler (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A., 2024-08-01T00:00:00Z.
• Subjects: article
• Online Access: Connect to this object online.

Summary

BackgroundThe time-varying reproduction number R is a critical variable for situational awareness during infectious disease outbreaks; however, delays between infection and reporting of cases hinder its accurate estimation in real-time. A number of nowcasting methods, leveraging available information on data consolidation delays, have been proposed to mitigate this problem.MethodsIn this work, we retrospectively validate the use of a nowcasting algorithm during 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy by quantitatively assessing its performance against standard methods for the estimation of R.ResultsNowcasting significantly reduced the median lag in the estimation of R from 13 to 8 days, while concurrently enhancing accuracy. Furthermore, it allowed the detection of periods of epidemic growth with a lead of between 6 and 23 days.ConclusionsNowcasting augments epidemic awareness, empowering better informed public health responses.

Item Description

2296-2565
10.3389/fpubh.2024.1430920