Estimate of the development of the epidemic reproduction number Rt from Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 case data and implications for political measures based on prognostics

Sahamoddin Khailaie; Tanmay Mitra; Arnab Bandyopadhyay; Marta Schips; Pietro Mascheroni; Patrizio Vanella; Berit Lange; Sebastian Binder; Michael Meyer-Hermann

A second level of information necessary for political decisions on NPIs is the prospective development of the outbreak under different scenarios. A too early release of NPIs risks to abandon the current level of containment and to restart a new wave of viral spreading (Ferguson et al. 2020) . A too long application of NPIs carries the risk of collateral damage and imposes a strong economic burden (Dorn et al. 2020) . Given the currently achieved reproduction number in Germany and its federal states, a prospective development under the conditions of either keeping NPIs in place, releasing or strengthening them is needed to allow for a thorough and responsible decision. Here, these scenarios are provided in terms of the expected total fraction of the population infected and of the number of hospital beds and intensive care units (ICUs) needed to treat patients with severe disease progression. Given particular levels of reducing or releasing NPIs with impact on the reproduction number, this analysis provides insights about the extent to which the health care system will be overwhelmed by the outbreak and at which time.