Open AccessThe scale and dynamics of COVID-19 epidemics across Europe
Author(s) -
Christopher Dye,
Russell C. H. Cheng,
J. S. Dagpunar,
Brian G. Williams
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
royal society open science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.84
H-Index - 51
ISSN - 2054-5703
DOI - 10.1098/rsos.201726
Subject(s) - covid-19 , demography , transmission (telecommunications) , geography , mortality rate , transmission rate , pandemic , coronavirus , population , scale (ratio) , biology , outbreak , medicine , virology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , cartography , sociology , disease , pathology , electrical engineering , engineering
The number of COVID-19 deaths reported from European countries has varied more than 100-fold. In terms of coronavirus transmission, the relatively low death rates in some countries could be due to low intrinsic (e.g. low population density) or imposed contact rates (e.g. non-pharmaceutical interventions) among individuals, or because fewer people were exposed or susceptible to infection (e.g. smaller populations). Here, we develop a flexible empirical model (skew-logistic) to distinguish among these possibilities. We find that countries reporting fewer deaths did not generally have intrinsically lower rates of transmission and epidemic growth, and flatter epidemic curves. Rather, countries with fewer deaths locked down earlier, had shorter epidemics that peaked sooner and smaller populations. Consequently, as lockdowns were eased, we expected, and duly observed, a resurgence of COVID-19 across Europe.