Inferring COVID-19 spreading rates and potential change points for case number forecasts

Jonas Dehning; Johannes Zierenberg; Frank Paul Spitzner; Michael Wibral; Joao Pinheiro Neto; Michael Wilczek; Viola Priesemann

Further more, the timing of an intervention matters: Apart from the strength of an intervention, its onset time has great impact on the total case number ( Fig. 2 C,D) . For example, focusing on the strong intervention (III) -where a stable plateau is reached -the effect of advancing or delaying the change point by just five days leads to more than a three-fold difference in cumulative cases. While we find that the timing of an intervention has great effect on case numbers, the duration over which the change takes place has only minor effect -if the intervals of change are centered around the same date. In Fig. 2 E,F we illustrate the adjustment of λ 0 → λ 1 having durations of 14, 7 and 1 day(s). Note that the change point duration is a simple way to incorporate variability in individual behavior, and is not linked to the reporting delay D.