• Corpus ID: 251442713

Incorporating testing volume into estimation of effective reproduction number dynamics.

@article{Goldstein2022IncorporatingTV,
  title={Incorporating testing volume into estimation of effective reproduction number dynamics.},
  author={Isaac H. Goldstein and Jonathan Wakefield and Vladimir N. Minin},
  journal={ArXiv},
  year={2022}
}

• Isaac H. Goldstein, J. Wakefield, V. Minin
• Published 8 August 2022
• Biology
• ArXiv

Branching process inspired models are widely used to estimate the effective reproduction number -- a useful summary statistic describing an infectious disease outbreak -- using counts of new cases. Case data is a real-time indicator of changes in the reproduction number, but is challenging to work with because cases fluctuate due to factors unrelated to the number of new infections. We develop a new model that incorporates the number of diagnostic tests as a surveillance model covariate. Using simulated data and data from the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in California, we demonstrate that incorporating tests leads to improved performance over the state-of-the-art.