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

The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.02.20050922 doi: medRxiv preprint this warrants utmost caution in easing restrictions for two reasons: First, easing restrictions too much will quickly lead to renewed exponential growth; second, we would be effectively blind to this worsened situation for nearly two weeks in which it will develop uninhibited. This may result in unwanted growth in case numbers beyond the level that the health system can cope with -especially when the active cases have not gone down close to zero before lifting restrictions, thus re-initiating growth from a high base level. Therefore, it is important to consider lifting restriction only when the number of active cases are so low that a two-week increase will not pose a serious threat.