scholarly journals Transmission potential of COVID-19 in South Korea

Author(s):  
Eunha Shim ◽  
Amna Tariq ◽  
Wongyeong Choi ◽  
Yiseul Lee ◽  
Gerardo Chowell

AbstractSince the first identified individual of 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) infection on Jan 20, 2020 in South Korea, the number of confirmed cases rapidly increased. As of Feb 26, 2020, 1,261 cases of COVID-19 including 12 deaths were confirmed in South Korea. Using the incidence data of COVID-19, we estimate the reproduction number at 1.5 (95% CI: 1.4-1.6), which indicates sustained transmission and support the implementation of social distancing measures to rapidly control the outbreak.

Author(s):  
Kenji Mizumoto ◽  
Gerardo Chowell

AbstractAn outbreak of COVID-19 developed aboard the Princess Cruises Ship during January-February 2020. Using mathematical modeling and time-series incidence data describing the trajectory of the outbreak among passengers and crew members, we characterize how the transmission potential varied over the course of the outbreak. Our estimate of the mean reproduction number in the confined setting reached values as high as ∼11, which is higher than mean estimates reported from community-level transmission dynamics in China and Singapore (approximate range: 1.1-7). Our findings suggest that Rt decreased substantially compared to values during the early phase after the Japanese government implemented an enhanced quarantine control. Most recent estimates of Rt reached values largely below the epidemic threshold, indicating that a secondary outbreak of the novel coronavirus was unlikely to occur aboard the Diamond Princess Ship.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yunjeong Lee ◽  
Dong Han Lee ◽  
Hee-Dae Kwon ◽  
Changsoo Kim ◽  
jeehyun lee

Abstract Background: The reproduction number is one of the most crucial parameters in determining disease dynamics, providing a summary measure of the transmission potential. However, estimating this value is particularly challenging owing to the characteristics of epidemic data, including non-reproducibility and incompleteness.Methods: In this study, we propose mathematical models with different population structures; each of these models can produce data on the number of cases of the influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 epidemic in South Korea. These structured models incorporating the heterogeneity of age and region are used to estimate the reproduction numbers at various terminal times. Subsequently, the age- and region-specific reproduction numbers are also computed to analyze the differences illustrated in the incidence data. Results: The basic SIR fails to provide a reasonable estimation of the reproduction numbers. The estimated values demonstrate a large variation and remains outside of the feasible range for the influenza, regardless of the time period for data. Real-time estimation using age- and region-structured models demonstrated that the effective reproduction number rose sharply during mid-October when the number of patients increased dramatically. The reproduction number fell below unity at the end of October and stayed lower than unity indicating that the epidemic starts decreasing, which is consistent with the incidence data. Conclusions: Numerical results reveal that the introduction of heterogeneity into the population to represent the general characteristics of dynamics is essential for the robust estimation of parameters.


Author(s):  
Kenji Mizumoto ◽  
Katsushi Kagaya ◽  
Gerardo Chowell

AbstractBackgroundSince the first cluster of cases was identified in Wuhan City, China, in December, 2019, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) rapidly spread around the world. Despite the scarcity of publicly available data, scientists around the world have made strides in estimating the magnitude of the epidemic, the basic reproduction number, and transmission patterns. Accumulating evidence suggests that a substantial fraction of the infected individuals with the novel coronavirus show little if any symptoms, which highlights the need to reassess the transmission potential of this emerging disease. In this study, we derive estimates of the transmissibility and virulence of COVID-19 in Wuhan City, China, by reconstructing the underlying transmission dynamics using multiple data sources.MethodsWe employ statistical methods and publicly available epidemiological datasets to jointly derive estimates of transmissibility and severity associated with the novel coronavirus. For this purpose, the daily series of laboratory–confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths in Wuhan City together with epidemiological data of Japanese repatriated from Wuhan City on board government–chartered flights were integrated into our analysis.ResultsOur posterior estimates of basic reproduction number (R) in Wuhan City, China in 2019–2020 reached values at 3.49 (95%CrI: 3.39–3.62) with a mean serial interval of 6.0 days, and the enhanced public health intervention after January 23rd in 2020 was associated with a significantly reduced R at 0.84 (95%CrI: 0.81–0.88), with the total number of infections (i.e. cumulative infections) estimated at 1906634 (95%CrI: 1373500–2651124) in Wuhan City, elevating the overall proportion of infected individuals to 19.1% (95%CrI: 13.5–26.6%). We also estimated the most recent crude infection fatality ratio (IFR) and time–delay adjusted IFR at 0.04% (95% CrI: 0.03%–0.06%) and 0.12% (95%CrI: 0.08–0.17%), respectively, estimates that are several orders of magnitude smaller than the crude CFR estimated at 4.06%ConclusionsWe have estimated key epidemiological parameters of the transmissibility and virulence of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China during January-February, 2020 using an ecological modelling approach. The power of this approach lies in the ability to infer epidemiological parameters with quantified uncertainty from partial observations collected by surveillance systems.


2020 ◽  
Vol 96 (1137) ◽  
pp. 399-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Yong Choi

A novel coronavirus (severe acute respiratory syndrome-CoV-2) that initially originated from Wuhan, China, in December 2019 has already caused a pandemic. While this novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) frequently induces mild diseases, it has also generated severe diseases among certain populations, including older-aged individuals with underlying diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. As of 31 March 2020, a total of 9786 confirmed cases with COVID-19 have been reported in South Korea. South Korea has the highest diagnostic rate for COVID-19, which has been the major contributor in overcoming this outbreak. We are trying to reduce the reproduction number of COVID-19 to less than one and eventually succeed in controlling this outbreak using methods such as contact tracing, quarantine, testing, isolation, social distancing and school closure. This report aimed to describe the current situation of COVID-19 in South Korea and our response to this outbreak.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yunjeong Lee ◽  
Dong Han Lee ◽  
Hee-Dae Kwon ◽  
Changsoo Kim ◽  
Jeehyun Lee

Abstract Background: The reproduction number is one of the most crucial parameters in determining disease dynamics, providing a summary measure of the transmission potential. However, estimating this value is particularly challenging owing to the characteristics of epidemic data, including non-reproducibility and incompleteness.Methods: In this study, we propose mathematical models with different population structures; each of these models can produce data on the number of cases of the influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 epidemic in South Korea. These structured models incorporating the heterogeneity of age and region are used to estimate the time-dependent effective reproduction numbers. Subsequently, the age- and region-specific reproduction numbers are also computed to analyze the differences illustrated in the incidence data.Results: The basic SIR fails to provide a reasonable estimation of the reproduction numbers. The estimated values demonstrate a large variation and remains outside of the feasible range for the influenza, regardless of the time period for data. Real-time estimation using age- and region-structured models demonstrated that the effective reproduction number rose sharply during mid-October when the ㅜumber of patients increased dramatically. The reproduction number fell below unity at the end of October and stayed lower than unity indicating that the epidemic starts decreasing, which is consistent with the incidence data.Conclusions: Numerical results reveal that the introduction of heterogeneity into the population to represent the general characteristics of dynamics is essential for the robust estimation of parameters.


Author(s):  
Atiqur Chowdhury ◽  
K M Ariful Kabir ◽  
Jun Tanimoto

Abstract Background: COVID-19 is a transmissible viral disease that has spread around the world rapidly and is currently a significant thread to developing and impoverished country by the World Bank and WHO’s prediction. Without inventing vaccination or the proper treatment, how we control the transmission of the COVID-19 is one of the most important questions with which peoples are facing right now . By the WHO’s guidelines, some policies termed as isolation, quarantine, lockdown, and social distancing would give a stunning direction to control the epidemic outbreak. Methods: In this paper, we developed a mathematical model named “Social distancing SEIQR model” to reduce the basic reproduction number R0 by combining both quarantine and social distancing parameters based on the real cases where medical equipment and other resources are limited. Results: Our modeling basic reproduction number R 0 is an almost accurate predictor threshold to assess the transmissibility of the COVID-19 in Bangladesh. Our modeling basic reproduction number R0 is an almost accurate predictor threshold to assess the transmissibility of the COVID-19 in Bangladesh. Our study result showed, our model fitted well with the numerically simulated results to the reported COVID-19 cases data for Bangladesh by a linear regression polynomial fit analysis. Conclusion: Our model will help to find strategies to reduce the human-to-human transmission of the virus and protect the nation when a country has limited medical resources.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyojung Lee ◽  
Yeahwon Kim ◽  
Eunsu Kim ◽  
Sunmi ‍Lee

BACKGROUND The emergence of COVID-19 has posed a serious threat to humans all around the world despite recent achievements of vaccines, antiviral drugs, and medical infrastructure. Our modern society has evolved too complex and most of the countries are tightly connected on a global scale. This makes it nearly impossible to implement perfect and prompt mitigation strategies for the COVID-19 outbreaks. Especially, due to the explosive growth of international travels, the diverse network and complexity of human mobility become an essential factor that gives rise to the spread of COVID-19 globally within a very short time. OBJECTIVE South Korea is one of the countries that have experienced the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the absence of vaccines and treatments, South Korea has implemented and maintained stringent interventions such as large-scale epidemiological investigation, rapid diagnosis, social distancing, and prompt clinical classification of severe patients with appropriate medical measures. In particular, South Korea has been implementing effective screening and quarantine at the airport. In this work, we aim to investigate the impacts of such effective interventions on international travels which can prevent local transmission of COVID-19. METHODS The relation between the number of passengers and the number of imported cases were analyzed. Based on the relation, we have assessed the country-specific risk as the spread of COVID-19 gets expanded from January to October 2020. Moreover, a renewal mathematical modeling has been employed incorporating the risk assessment to capture both imported and local cases of COVID-19 in South Korea. We have estimated the basic reproduction number and the effective reproduction number accounting for both imported and local cases. RESULTS The basic reproduction number (R_0) was estimated at 1.87 (95% CI : 1.47, 2.35) with the rate (α =0.07)of the secondary transmission caused by the imported cases. The time-varying basic reproduction number (effective reproduction number, R_t) was estimated. Our results indicate that the prompt implementation of case-isolation and quarantine were effective to reduce the. secondary cases from imported cases in spite of constant inflows from high-risk countries of COVID-19 all throughout the year 2020. Moreover, various mitigation interventions including social distancing and movement restriction have been maintained effectively to reduce the spread of local cases in South Korea. CONCLUSIONS We have investigated the relative risk of importation of COVID-19, using the country-specific epidemiological data, and passenger volume. By combining the social distancing, screening, and self-quarantine for all travelers entering Korea, the mitigation of COVID-19 transmission caused by imported cases in Korea was highly successful. Those efforts, accompanied by identification of the source of infection, the strengthened quarantine measures for travelers from overseas countries, should be continued. However, the recent new coronavirus variant originated from South Africa has been threatening to get back to the strict border control and lockdown of all around the world again. Therefore, it is urgent to assess the importation risk and maintain an effective surveillance system of COVID-19 in South Korea.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Rowland ◽  
Todd M. Swannack ◽  
Michael L. Mayo ◽  
Matthew Parno ◽  
Matthew Farthing ◽  
...  

AbstractThe SARS-CoV-2 virus is responsible for the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which has spread to populations throughout the continental United States. Most state and local governments have adopted some level of “social distancing” policy, but infections have continued to spread despite these efforts. Absent a vaccine, authorities have few other tools by which to mitigate further spread of the virus. This begs the question of how effective social policy really is at reducing new infections that, left alone, could potentially overwhelm the existing hospitalization capacity of many states. We developed a mathematical model that captures correlations between some state-level “social distancing” policies and infection kinetics for all U.S. states, and use it to illustrate the link between social policy decisions, disease dynamics, and an effective reproduction number that changes over time, for case studies of Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Washington states. In general, our findings indicate that the potential for second waves of infection, which result after reopening states without an increase to immunity, can be mitigated by a return of social distancing policies as soon as possible after the waves are detected.


Author(s):  
Adam J Kucharski ◽  
Timothy W Russell ◽  
Charlie Diamond ◽  
Yang Liu ◽  
John Edmunds ◽  
...  

AbstractBackgroundAn outbreak of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has led to 46,997 confirmed cases as of 13th February 2020. Understanding the early transmission dynamics of the infection and evaluating the effectiveness of control measures is crucial for assessing the potential for sustained transmission to occur in new areas.MethodsWe combined a stochastic transmission model with data on cases of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Wuhan and international cases that originated in Wuhan to estimate how transmission had varied over time during January and February 2020. Based on these estimates, we then calculated the probability that newly introduced cases might generate outbreaks in other areas.FindingsWe estimated that the median daily reproduction number, Rt, declined from 2.35 (95% CI: 1.15-4.77) one week before travel restrictions were introduced on 23rd January to 1.05 (95% CI: 0.413-2.39) one week after. Based on our estimates of Rt,we calculated that in locations with similar transmission potential as Wuhan in early January, once there are at least four independently introduced cases, there is a more than 50% chance the infection will establish within that population.InterpretationOur results show that COVID-19 transmission likely declined in Wuhan during late January 2020, coinciding with the introduction of control measures. As more cases arrive in international locations with similar transmission potential to Wuhan pre-control, it is likely many chains of transmission will fail to establish initially, but may still cause new outbreaks eventually.FundingWellcome Trust (206250/Z/17/Z, 210758/Z/18/Z), HDR UK (MR/S003975/1), Gates Foundation (INV-003174), NIHR (16/137/109)


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 94-99
Author(s):  
Rashidur Rahman ◽  
Amjad Hossain ◽  
Md Mozibullah ◽  
Afrina Afrose

A novel coronavirus, namely SARS-CoV-2, has emerged rapidly and overspread worldwide, causing a pandemic disease, COVID-19. Until now, no pharmaceutical interventions specific to the COVID-19 infection has been proven effective. In these circumstances, non-pharmaceutical interventions, for example, banning local and international flights, national lockdowns of cities, social distancing, self-isolation, home-quarantine, the closure of schools and universities, closure of government and private offices, banning of mass gatherings would play a vital role in minimizing the primary reproduction number (R0) in expected level. Many Asia Pacific countries, Bangladesh, China, India, Iran, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, and Vietnam, adopt, practice, and implement those non-pharmaceutical interventions and have success stories. Thereby, non-pharmaceutical interventions can contain the virus's spreading, which further reduces long waiting for the healthcare system's hospitalization and burden.


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