TY - JOUR
T1 - Some comparisons between Italy and the UK for Covid-19: March to April 2020
AU - Sebastiani, G
AU - Stander, J
AU - Cortina, Borja M
PY - 2020/4/21
Y1 - 2020/4/21
N2 - With the rapid global spread of Covid-19 in recent weeks, many comparisons have
been made between the number of cases in different countries. Italy was one of the
first in Europe to be badly hit by the pandemic and imposed a full lockdown on
12 March. The effects of Covid-19 were felt later in the UK, with the lockdown
coming on 24 March. It is therefore of interest to compare the progress of the
disease in Italy to the countries of the UK. To do this we use publicly available data1,2
and statistical models including logistic growth to address the questions, “Is the
increase in the number of documented cases of Covid-19 slowing down?” and “How
soon do changes follow from lockdowns?”.
By documented cases, we mean the number of positive tests recorded as
totale_casi in the regional Italian data1 and as ConfirmedCases in the
England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales data2
. An easy to understand handle
on the spread of an epidemic can be given by the time it takes for the number of
cases to double. Although the estimation of these daily doubling times is not
straightforward, examining how they change from day to day can provide us with
additional insights. We now discuss in detail two statistical models that are widely
used in the context of epidemics.
AB - With the rapid global spread of Covid-19 in recent weeks, many comparisons have
been made between the number of cases in different countries. Italy was one of the
first in Europe to be badly hit by the pandemic and imposed a full lockdown on
12 March. The effects of Covid-19 were felt later in the UK, with the lockdown
coming on 24 March. It is therefore of interest to compare the progress of the
disease in Italy to the countries of the UK. To do this we use publicly available data1,2
and statistical models including logistic growth to address the questions, “Is the
increase in the number of documented cases of Covid-19 slowing down?” and “How
soon do changes follow from lockdowns?”.
By documented cases, we mean the number of positive tests recorded as
totale_casi in the regional Italian data1 and as ConfirmedCases in the
England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales data2
. An easy to understand handle
on the spread of an epidemic can be given by the time it takes for the number of
cases to double. Although the estimation of these daily doubling times is not
straightforward, examining how they change from day to day can provide us with
additional insights. We now discuss in detail two statistical models that are widely
used in the context of epidemics.
UR - https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/context/secam-research/article/1765/viewcontent/Some_Comparisons_between_Italy_and_the_UK_for_COVID_19.pdf
M3 - Article
SN - 1740-9705
VL - 0
JO - Significance: statistics making sense
JF - Significance: statistics making sense
IS - 0
ER -