The impacts of diagnostic capability and prevention measures on transmission dynamics of COVID-19 in Wuhan

Jingbo LIANG; Hsiang-Yu Yuan

One of the benefits of using transmission models, such as SIR or SEIR, to estimate R e is that many complex epidemiological factors and control measures can be naturally incorporated. The inclusion of the infectious incubation period, during which an infected individual has no symptoms, but can infect others, may affect transmissibility estimation. Studies have shown the presence of the incubation infections of COVID-19 19 . Specifically, a recent study reported a 20-year-old woman from Wuhan passed it to five of her family members but never got physically sick herself 20 . Another study in Germany reported that a case with mild symptoms infected two colleagues when they worked together 21 . Given the transmission by asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic persons, it indicates that time from exposure to infection may be shorter than the incubation period. However, in most studies with SEIR models, an assumption was made that the incubation cases had weak . CC-BY-ND 4.0 International license It is made available under a author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.